Unit testing patch requests with django's test client
=====================================================

.. note:: My original patch and idea was used to add PATCH to the test client, you can now test http PATCH calls with the standard django testing client. [#f1]_ [#f2]_

Whilst developing with Django and Tastypie I discovered that the Django test client doesn't contain a method for testing PATCH requests, I have submitted patches to the Django project to correct this, but until those patches get accepted I need a way to test PATCH, so I extend the Client class in my tests.py file:

.. code:: python

    from django.test.client import Client, FakePayload, MULTIPART_CONTENT from urlparse import urlparse, urlsplit

    class Client2(Client):
        """
        Construct a second test client which can do PATCH requests.
        """
        def patch(self, path, data={}, content_type=MULTIPART_CONTENT, **extra): 
            """ Construct a PATCH request. """
            patch_data = self._encode_data(data, content_type)
            parsed = urlparse(path)
            r = {
                'CONTENT_LENGTH': len(patch_data),
                'CONTENT_TYPE':   content_type,
                'PATH_INFO':      self._get_path(parsed),
                'QUERY_STRING':   parsed[4],
                'REQUEST_METHOD': 'PATCH',
                'wsgi.input':     FakePayload(patch_data),
            }
            r.update(extra)
            return self.request(**r)

I can then do the following:

.. code:: python

    class testpatch(TestCase):
        def setUp(self):
            self.client = Client2()

        def test_patch(self):
            response = self.client.patch(
                path='/api/v1/enterprisepod/1/',
                data='{"gateway": "10.10.0.1/24"}',
                content_type='application/json',
                **{'HTTP_AUTHORIZATION': APIKEY}
            )


.. [#f1] https://code.djangoproject.com/ticket/17797
.. [#f2] https://github.com/django/django/commit/293f7a21147ad94c92c7d5b3f33cbab2f87b001b