Django request.user modification not happening in test

Question

I have a view that is changing a field of request.user:

def test(request):                  
    request.user.is_provider = False
    request.user.save()
    print(request.user.is_provider)
    return HttpResponse(status=200)

Now I am testing the function and I have the following test:

class RoleSwitchTests(TestCase):
    def test_switch_to_customer(self):
        User = get_user_model()
        user = User.objects.create_user(
            username='test',
            email='test',
            password='test',
            first_name='test',
            last_name='test',
            is_provider=True,
            is_admin=False,
        )
        self.client.login(username='test', password='test')
        response = self.client.post('/test/', follow=True)
        print(user.is_provider)
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)
        self.assertFalse(user.is_provider)

self.assertFalse(user.is_provider) fails here. For some reason, request.user.is_provider is False in test, but in test_switch_to_customer, user.is_provider is True. I know these refer to the same user because they have the same id, so why is the modification not being preserved here?

Answer 1

You should use refresh_from_db to reload the updated user from the database after the post

user.refresh_from_db()