Building data-driven web apps with Flask and SQLAlchemy Transcripts
Chapter: Testing web apps
Lecture: Concept: Testing view models

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0:00 Let's review testing view models.
0:02 They're the simplest of the web
0:04 framework integrated pieces that we have to test.
0:07 So, we saw that we need to provide
0:09 some sort of request data, set up the flash request
0:13 and other flash features for the view model.
0:16 But other than that, it's just calling
0:17 the functions of the view model.
0:19 So here we're going to test that if we
0:21 try to register with no email then we're
0:24 going to get an error saying, you have to have an email.
0:27 So, how do we do it?
0:28 We have the three A's of testing.
0:30 We're going to arrange, which means we're
0:32 going to import our registration view model
0:33 and set up the form data.
0:35 Notice here, there's no email.
0:37 It's just an empty string.
0:39 And then, in order for us to work with
0:42 that data we have to pass it through
0:44 this test request context in a context
0:47 manager using a with block.
0:49 So here we say the path is /account/register
0:51 and the form data that's submitted
0:53 is email empty password the letter a.
0:56 Second thing is to act.
0:57 We're going to validate that form data
0:59 which is going to look and say, oh there's no email
1:02 you're going to have to have an email.
1:03 It's going to set an error saying that's the case.
1:06 Then we're going to assert at this error set
1:08 and that email is in the error. Right?
1:11 You don't want to be too specific.
1:12 Just specific enough to verify
1:14 like that case is happening.
1:16 But not so much so that if you slightly
1:18 change the wording then you've got
1:19 to rewrite your test.
1:20 All right, so here's a basic way
1:22 to do the test.
1:23 Why are we not using mocking and mocking out
1:26 the database call?
1:27 Because this validation is more simple. Right?
1:30 We never made it down to the database
1:31 validation layer, so we don't need to.