Testing Class-based Views Clarification

[Matthew Pava]

We have this code for testing class-based views, and I think we need some clarification in the documentation.
​https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/testing/advanced/#testing-class-based-views

from django.test import RequestFactory, TestCase
from .views import HomeView


class HomePageTest(TestCase):
    def test_environment_set_in_context(self):
        request = RequestFactory().get("/")
        view = HomeView()
        view.setup(request)

        context = view.get_context_data()
        self.assertIn("environment", context)

The RequestFactory().get() method returns a response, and not a request.
On top of that TestCase already has access to a RequestFactory object called client.
Lastly, the response object is not a request object that you would pass into the view.setup function. You can access the request object from the client. This is what I have:

from django.test import TestCase
from .views import HomeView


class HomePageTest(TestCase):
    def test_environment_set_in_context(self):
        self.client.get("/")
        view = HomeView()
        view.setup(self.client.request)

        context = view.get_context_data()
        self.assertIn("environment", context)

[Mariusz Felisiak]

The RequestFactory().get() method returns a response, and not a request.

That's not true, it generates a request instances.

Lastly, the response object is not a request object that you would pass into the view.setup function.

Why not?

As far as I'm aware, the current examples work fine.

[Matthew Pava]

I got confused with the RequestFactory object. Of course, it makes sense that would return a request. I got so focused on using self.client.get, which does return a response if my understanding is correct.

Even so, the example is inconsistent with the other examples on the webpage, which use self.client.get instead of RequestFactory.get.

I used self.client.get in my test, and it worked just as well.