webtest API

Routines for testing WSGI applications.

webtest.app.TestApp

class webtest.app.TestApp(app, extra_environ=None, relative_to=None, use_unicode=True, cookiejar=None, parser_features=None, json_encoder=None, lint=True)

Wraps a WSGI application in a more convenient interface for testing. It uses extended version of webob.BaseRequest and webob.Response.

Parameters:

• app (WSGI application) –

  May be an WSGI application or Paste Deploy app, like 'config:filename.ini#test'.

  New in version 2.0.

  It can also be an actual full URL to an http server and webtest will proxy requests with WSGIProxy2.

• extra_environ (dict) – A dictionary of values that should go into the environment for each request. These can provide a communication channel with the application.
• relative_to (string) – A directory used for file uploads are calculated relative to this. Also config: URIs that aren’t absolute.
• cookiejar (CookieJar instance) – cookielib.CookieJar alike API that keeps cookies across requets.

cookies

A convenient shortcut for a dict of all cookies in cookiejar.

Parameters:

• parser_features (string or list) – Passed to BeautifulSoup when parsing responses.
• json_encoder (A subclass of json.JSONEncoder) – Passed to json.dumps when encoding json
• lint (A boolean) – If True (default) then check that the application is WSGI compliant

RequestClass

alias of TestRequest

authorization

Allow to set the HTTP_AUTHORIZATION environ key. Value should look like one of the following:

• ('Basic', ('user', 'password'))
• ('Bearer', 'mytoken')
• ('JWT', 'myjwt')

If value is None the the HTTP_AUTHORIZATION is removed

delete(url, params='', headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, expect_errors=False, content_type=None, xhr=False)

Do a DELETE request. Similar to get().

Returns:webtest.TestResponse instance.

delete_json(url, params=<NoDefault>, **kw)

Do a DELETE request. Very like the delete method.

params are dumped to json and put in the body of the request. Content-Type is set to application/json.

Returns a webtest.TestResponse object.

do_request(req, status=None, expect_errors=None)

Executes the given webob Request (req), with the expected status. Generally get() and post() are used instead.

To use this:

req = webtest.TestRequest.blank('url', ...args...)
resp = app.do_request(req)

Note

You can pass any keyword arguments to TestRequest.blank(), which will be set on the request. These can be arguments like content_type, accept, etc.

encode_multipart(params, files)

Encodes a set of parameters (typically a name/value list) and a set of files (a list of (name, filename, file_body, mimetype)) into a typical POST body, returning the (content_type, body).

get(url, params=None, headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, expect_errors=False, xhr=False)

Do a GET request given the url path.

Parameters:

• params – A query string, or a dictionary that will be encoded into a query string. You may also include a URL query string on the url.
• headers (dictionary) – Extra headers to send.
• extra_environ (dictionary) – Environmental variables that should be added to the request.
• status (integer or string) – The HTTP status code you expect in response (if not 200 or 3xx). You can also use a wildcard, like '3*' or '*'.
• expect_errors (boolean) – If this is False, then if anything is written to environ wsgi.errors it will be an error. If it is True, then non-200/3xx responses are also okay.
• xhr (boolean) – If this is true, then marks response as ajax. The same as headers={‘X-REQUESTED-WITH’: ‘XMLHttpRequest’, }

Returns:

webtest.TestResponse instance.

get_authorization()

Allow to set the HTTP_AUTHORIZATION environ key. Value should look like one of the following:

• ('Basic', ('user', 'password'))
• ('Bearer', 'mytoken')
• ('JWT', 'myjwt')

If value is None the the HTTP_AUTHORIZATION is removed

head(url, headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, expect_errors=False, xhr=False)

Do a HEAD request. Similar to get().

Returns:webtest.TestResponse instance.

options(url, headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, expect_errors=False, xhr=False)

Do a OPTIONS request. Similar to get().

Returns:webtest.TestResponse instance.

patch(url, params='', headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, upload_files=None, expect_errors=False, content_type=None, xhr=False)

Do a PATCH request. Similar to post().

Returns:webtest.TestResponse instance.

patch_json(url, params=<NoDefault>, **kw)

Do a PATCH request. Very like the patch method.

params are dumped to json and put in the body of the request. Content-Type is set to application/json.

Returns a webtest.TestResponse object.

post(url, params='', headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, upload_files=None, expect_errors=False, content_type=None, xhr=False)

Do a POST request. Similar to get().

Parameters:

• params –

  Are put in the body of the request. If params is a iterator it will be urlencoded, if it is string it will not be encoded, but placed in the body directly.

  Can be a collections.OrderedDict with webtest.forms.Upload fields included:

  app.post(‘/myurl’, collections.OrderedDict([

  (‘textfield1’, ‘value1’), (‘uploadfield’, webapp.Upload(‘filename.txt’, ‘contents’), (‘textfield2’, ‘value2’)])))

• upload_files (list) – It should be a list of (fieldname, filename, file_content). You can also use just (fieldname, filename) and the file contents will be read from disk.
• content_type (string) – HTTP content type, for example application/json.
• xhr (boolean) – If this is true, then marks response as ajax. The same as headers={‘X-REQUESTED-WITH’: ‘XMLHttpRequest’, }

Returns:

webtest.TestResponse instance.

post_json(url, params=<NoDefault>, **kw)

Do a POST request. Very like the post method.

params are dumped to json and put in the body of the request. Content-Type is set to application/json.

Returns a webtest.TestResponse object.

put(url, params='', headers=None, extra_environ=None, status=None, upload_files=None, expect_errors=False, content_type=None, xhr=False)

Do a PUT request. Similar to post().

Returns:webtest.TestResponse instance.

put_json(url, params=<NoDefault>, **kw)

Do a PUT request. Very like the put method.

params are dumped to json and put in the body of the request. Content-Type is set to application/json.

Returns a webtest.TestResponse object.

request(url_or_req, status=None, expect_errors=False, **req_params)

Creates and executes a request. You may either pass in an instantiated TestRequest object, or you may pass in a URL and keyword arguments to be passed to TestRequest.blank().

You can use this to run a request without the intermediary functioning of TestApp.get() etc. For instance, to test a WebDAV method:

resp = app.request('/new-col', method='MKCOL')

Note that the request won’t have a body unless you specify it, like:

resp = app.request('/test.txt', method='PUT', body='test')

You can use webtest.TestRequest:

req = webtest.TestRequest.blank('/url/', method='GET')
resp = app.do_request(req)

reset()

Resets the state of the application; currently just clears saved cookies.

set_cookie(name, value)

Sets a cookie to be passed through with requests.

set_parser_features(parser_features)

Changes the parser used by BeautifulSoup. See its documentation to know the supported parsers.

webtest.app.TestRequest

class webtest.app.TestRequest(environ, charset=None, unicode_errors=None, decode_param_names=None, **kw)

Bases: webob.request.BaseRequest

A subclass of webob.Request

ResponseClass

alias of TestResponse

webtest.response.TestResponse

class webtest.response.TestResponse(body=None, status=None, headerlist=None, app_iter=None, content_type=None, conditional_response=None, charset=<object object>, **kw)

Bases: webob.response.Response

Instances of this class are returned by TestApp methods.

click(description=None, linkid=None, href=None, index=None, verbose=False, extra_environ=None)

Click the link as described. Each of description, linkid, and url are patterns, meaning that they are either strings (regular expressions), compiled regular expressions (objects with a search method), or callables returning true or false.

All the given patterns are ANDed together:

• description is a pattern that matches the contents of the anchor (HTML and all – everything between <a...> and </a>)
• linkid is a pattern that matches the id attribute of the anchor. It will receive the empty string if no id is given.
• href is a pattern that matches the href of the anchor; the literal content of that attribute, not the fully qualified attribute.

If more than one link matches, then the index link is followed. If index is not given and more than one link matches, or if no link matches, then IndexError will be raised.

If you give verbose then messages will be printed about each link, and why it does or doesn’t match. If you use app.click(verbose=True) you’ll see a list of all the links.

You can use multiple criteria to essentially assert multiple aspects about the link, e.g., where the link’s destination is.

clickbutton(description=None, buttonid=None, href=None, index=None, verbose=False)

Like click(), except looks for link-like buttons. This kind of button should look like <button onclick="...location.href='url'...">.

follow(**kw)

If this response is a redirect, follow that redirect. It is an error if it is not a redirect response. Any keyword arguments are passed to webtest.app.TestApp.get. Returns another TestResponse object.

form

If there is only one form on the page, return it as a Form object; raise a TypeError is there are no form or multiple forms.

forms

Returns a dictionary containing all the forms in the pages as Form objects. Indexes are both in order (from zero) and by form id (if the form is given an id).

See Form handling for more info on form objects.

goto(href, method='get', **args)

Go to the (potentially relative) link href, using the given method ('get' or 'post') and any extra arguments you want to pass to the webtest.app.TestApp.get() or webtest.app.TestApp.post() methods.

All hostnames and schemes will be ignored.

html

Returns the response as a BeautifulSoup object.

Only works with HTML responses; other content-types raise AttributeError.

json

Return the response as a JSON response. The content type must be one of json type to use this.

lxml

Returns the response as an lxml object. You must have lxml installed to use this.

If this is an HTML response and you have lxml 2.x installed, then an lxml.html.HTML object will be returned; if you have an earlier version of lxml then a lxml.HTML object will be returned.

maybe_follow(**kw)

Follow all redirects. If this response is not a redirect, do nothing. Any keyword arguments are passed to webtest.app.TestApp.get. Returns another TestResponse object.

mustcontain(*strings, no=[])

Assert that the response contains all of the strings passed in as arguments.

Equivalent to:

assert string in res

Can take a no keyword argument that can be a string or a list of strings which must not be present in the response.

normal_body

Return the whitespace-normalized body

pyquery

Returns the response as a PyQuery object.

Only works with HTML and XML responses; other content-types raise AttributeError.

showbrowser()

Show this response in a browser window (for debugging purposes, when it’s hard to read the HTML).

unicode_normal_body

Return the whitespace-normalized body, as unicode

xml

Returns the response as an ElementTree object.

Only works with XML responses; other content-types raise AttributeError

webtest.forms

Helpers to fill and submit forms.

class webtest.forms.Checkbox(*args, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <input type="checkbox">

checked

Returns True if checkbox is checked.

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Email(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <input type="email">

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Field(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: object

Base class for all Field objects.

classes

Dictionary of field types (select, radio, etc)

value

Set/get value of the field.

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.File(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <input type="file">

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Form(response, text, parser_features='html.parser')

Bases: object

This object represents a form that has been found in a page.

Parameters:

• response – webob.response.TestResponse instance
• text – Unparsed html of the form

text

the full HTML of the form.

action

the relative URI of the action.

method

the HTTP method (e.g., 'GET').

id

the id, or None if not given.

enctype

encoding of the form submission

fields

a dictionary of fields, each value is a list of fields by that name. <input type="radio"> and <select> are both represented as single fields with multiple options.

field_order

Ordered list of field names as found in the html.

FieldClass

alias of Field

get(name, index=None, default=<NoDefault>)

Get the named/indexed field object, or default if no field is found. Throws an AssertionError if no field is found and no default was given.

lint()

Check that the html is valid:

• each field must have an id
• each field must have a label

select(name, value=None, text=None, index=None)

Like .set(), except also confirms the target is a <select> and allows selecting options by text.

select_multiple(name, value=None, texts=None, index=None)

Like .set(), except also confirms the target is a <select multiple> and allows selecting options by text.

set(name, value, index=None)

Set the given name, using index to disambiguate.

submit(name=None, index=None, value=None, **args)

Submits the form. If name is given, then also select that button (using index or value to disambiguate)``.

Any extra keyword arguments are passed to the webtest.TestResponse.get() or webtest.TestResponse.post() method.

Returns a webtest.TestResponse object.

submit_fields(name=None, index=None, submit_value=None)

Return a list of [(name, value), ...] for the current state of the form.

Parameters:

• name – Same as for submit()
• index – Same as for submit()

upload_fields()

Return a list of file field tuples of the form:

(field name, file name)

or:

(field name, file name, file contents).

class webtest.forms.Hidden(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Text

Field representing <input type="hidden">

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.MultipleSelect(*args, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <select multiple="multiple">

force_value(values)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Radio(*args, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Select

Field representing <input type="radio">

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Select(*args, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <select /> form element.

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Submit(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <input type="submit"> and <button>

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Text(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Field

Field representing <input type="text">

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Textarea(form, tag, name, pos, value=None, id=None, **attrs)

Bases: webtest.forms.Text

Field representing <textarea>

force_value(value)

Like setting a value, except forces it (even for, say, hidden fields).

class webtest.forms.Upload(filename, content=None, content_type=None)

Bases: object

A file to upload:

>>> Upload('filename.txt', 'data', 'application/octet-stream')
<Upload "filename.txt">
>>> Upload('filename.txt', 'data')
<Upload "filename.txt">
>>> Upload("README.txt")
<Upload "README.txt">

Parameters:

• filename – Name of the file to upload.
• content – Contents of the file.
• content_type – MIME type of the file.

webtest.http

webtest.lint

Middleware to check for obedience to the WSGI specification.

Some of the things this checks:

• Signature of the application and start_response (including that keyword arguments are not used).
• Environment checks:
  • Environment is a dictionary (and not a subclass).
  • That all the required keys are in the environment: REQUEST_METHOD, SERVER_NAME, SERVER_PORT, wsgi.version, wsgi.input, wsgi.errors, wsgi.multithread, wsgi.multiprocess, wsgi.run_once
  • That HTTP_CONTENT_TYPE and HTTP_CONTENT_LENGTH are not in the environment (these headers should appear as CONTENT_LENGTH and CONTENT_TYPE).
  • Warns if QUERY_STRING is missing, as the cgi module acts unpredictably in that case.
  • That CGI-style variables (that don’t contain a .) have (non-unicode) string values
  • That wsgi.version is a tuple
  • That wsgi.url_scheme is ‘http’ or ‘https’ (@@: is this too restrictive?)
  • Warns if the REQUEST_METHOD is not known (@@: probably too restrictive).
  • That SCRIPT_NAME and PATH_INFO are empty or start with /
  • That at least one of SCRIPT_NAME or PATH_INFO are set.
  • That CONTENT_LENGTH is a positive integer.
  • That SCRIPT_NAME is not ‘/’ (it should be ‘’, and PATH_INFO should be ‘/’).
  • That wsgi.input has the methods read, readline, readlines, and __iter__
  • That wsgi.errors has the methods flush, write, writelines
• The status is a string, contains a space, starts with an integer, and that integer is in range (> 100).
• That the headers is a list (not a subclass, not another kind of sequence).
• That the items of the headers are tuples of ‘native’ strings (i.e. bytestrings in Python2, and unicode strings in Python3).
• That there is no ‘status’ header (that is used in CGI, but not in WSGI).
• That the headers don’t contain newlines or colons, end in _ or -, or contain characters codes below 037.
• That Content-Type is given if there is content (CGI often has a default content type, but WSGI does not).
• That no Content-Type is given when there is no content (@@: is this too restrictive?)
• That the exc_info argument to start_response is a tuple or None.
• That all calls to the writer are with strings, and no other methods on the writer are accessed.
• That wsgi.input is used properly:
  • .read() is called with zero or one argument
  • That it returns a string
  • That readline, readlines, and __iter__ return strings
  • That .close() is not called
  • No other methods are provided
• That wsgi.errors is used properly:
  • .write() and .writelines() is called with a string, except with python3
  • That .close() is not called, and no other methods are provided.
• The response iterator:
  • That it is not a string (it should be a list of a single string; a string will work, but perform horribly).
  • That .next() returns a string
  • That the iterator is not iterated over until start_response has been called (that can signal either a server or application error).
  • That .close() is called (doesn’t raise exception, only prints to sys.stderr, because we only know it isn’t called when the object is garbage collected).

webtest.lint.middleware(application, global_conf=None)

When applied between a WSGI server and a WSGI application, this middleware will check for WSGI compliancy on a number of levels. This middleware does not modify the request or response in any way, but will throw an AssertionError if anything seems off (except for a failure to close the application iterator, which will be printed to stderr – there’s no way to throw an exception at that point).

webtest.debugapp

class webtest.debugapp.DebugApp(form=None, show_form=False)

Bases: object

The WSGI application used for testing

webtest.debugapp.make_debug_app(global_conf, **local_conf)

An application that displays the request environment, and does nothing else (useful for debugging and test purposes).