A full and popular (more than 10.000 downloads) library to create dynamic model instances for testing purposes.

• Installation
• Motivation
• Comparison with another fixture tools
• Features
• Other goodies
• Basic Example of Usage
• Documentation
• FAQ

pip install django-dynamic-fixture

1. Download zip file
2. Extract it
3. Execute in the extracted directory: python setup.py install

pip install django-dynamic-fixture --upgrade --no-deps

• Python 2.6 or 2.7
• Django 1.2, 1.3 or 1.4

• It is a TERRIBLE practice to use STATIC data in tests.
• Create dynamic fixture for each model is boring and it produces a lot of replicated code.
• It is a bad idea to use uncontrolled data in tests, like bizarre random data.

• We tried to use another fixture tools in a big Django project but the experience was not satisfactory.
• Either they are incomplete, or bugged or it produces erratic tests, because they use random and uncontrolled data.
• Also, the syntax of others tools is too verbose, which polutes the tests.
• Complete, lean and practice documentation.
• It is hard to debug tests with another tools.
• List of other tools: http://djangopackages.com/grids/g/fixtures

• Highly customizable: you can customize fields recursively
• Deal with unique=True
• Deal with cyclic dependencies (including self references)
• Deal with many to many relationship (common M2M or M2M with additional data, i.e. through='table')
• Deal with custom fields (specially if the custom field inherit of a django field)
• It is supported for parallel tests
• Deal with auto calculated attributes
• It is easy to debug errors

• Nose plugin that enable a setup for the entire suite (unittest2 includes only setups for class and module)
• Nose plugin to count how many queries are executed by test
• Command to count how many queries are executed to save any kind of model instance
• FileSystemDjangoTestCase that facilitate to create tests for features that use filesystem.

from django.db import models

class Author(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)

class Book(models.Model):
    name = models.CharField(max_length=255)
    authors = models.ManyToManyField(Author)

from django.test import TestCase
from django_dynamic_fixture import G

class SearchingBooks(TestCase):
    def test_search_book_by_author(self):
        author1 = G(Author)
        author2 = G(Author)
        book1 = G(Book, authors=[author1])
        book2 = G(Book, authors=[author2])
        books = Book.objects.search_by_author(author1.name)
        self.assertTrue(book1 in books)
        self.assertTrue(book2 not in books)

• Simple documentation: https://github.com/paulocheque/django-dynamic-fixture/wiki/Simple-Documentation
• Full documentation: https://github.com/paulocheque/django-dynamic-fixture/wiki/Documentation
• Examples of Usage: https://github.com/paulocheque/django-dynamic-fixture/wiki/Example-of-usage
• Patterns and Anti-patterns: https://github.com/paulocheque/django-dynamic-fixture/wiki/Patterns-and-Anti-Patterns
• Wiki: https://github.com/paulocheque/django-dynamic-fixture/wiki

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12487337/optimizing-setup-and-teardown-for-sample-django-model-using-django-nose-and-djan
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4400609/initial-data-fixture-management-in-django