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How to authenticate while testing Django REST Framework

Ján Vorčák

@jvorcak

django testing drf django rest framework

Before I used to authenticate using the following method while testing DRF.

Afterwards, everything works as expected.

import unittest

from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from django.test import TestCase
from rest_framework import status
from rest_framework.test import APIClient

User = get_user_model()

class ExampleTestCase(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        User.objects.create_user(username='test', password='test-pass')
        self.client = APIClient()
        self.client.login(username='test', password='test-pass')

    def test_some_api_endpoint(self):
        response = self.client.get(f'/api/jobs/')

        # check status
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, status.HTTP_200_OK)

However, there is more elegant solution that doesn't require you to come up with mocked passwords.


import unittest

from django.contrib.auth import get_user_model
from django.test import TestCase
from rest_framework import status
from rest_framework.test import APIClient

User = get_user_model()

class ExampleTestCase(TestCase):
    def setUp(self):
        self.u1 = User.objects.create_user(username='test')
        self.client = APIClient()
        self.client.force_authenticate(self.u1)

    def test_some_api_endpoint(self):
        response = self.client.get(f'/api/jobs/')

        # check status
        self.assertEqual(response.status_code, status.HTTP_200_OK)