Django Rest Framework APIClient does not parse query parameters - django

Question

I am using djangorestframework==3.3.3 and Django==1.9.4
I have a test where I want to check that query parameters processed correctly.
class TestResourceView(APITestCase):
def test_view_process_query_params_correctly(self):
client = APIClient()
client.login(username='<username>', password='password')
response = client.get('/api/v2/resource/1/users/?fields=first_name;last_name')
self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)
# .... rest of the test ....
In my view I put print statement just to see if query parameters are parsed properly, but I get empty query dictionary:
class Resource(APIView):
def get(self, request):
query_params = request.query_params
print('Printing query params')
print(query_params)
# .... rest of the code ....
def post(self, request):
query_params = request.query_params
print('Printing query params')
print(query_params)
# .... rest of the code ....
Result in terminal when running tests:
Printing query params
<QueryDict: {}>
In the same time if I test post request like this:
response = client.post('/api/v2/resource/1/users/?fields=first_name;last_name')
i get params incorrectly parsed:
Printing query params
<QueryDict: {'last_name': [''], 'fields': ['first_name']}>
What is the correct way of using APIClient? Or is this still a bug? Because there was already similar issue

Answer 1

For me, the issue was that DRF wants the params in data not args like the Django test client.
This answer helped me:
https://stackoverflow.com/a/45183972/9512437
class AccountTests(APITestCase):
def setUp(self):
self.user = CustomUser.objects.create_user(email="user1#test.com", password="password1", is_staff=True)
self.client = APIClient()
def test_add_name(self):
self.client.force_authenticate(self.user)
url = reverse('customuser-detail', args=(self.user.id,))
data = {'first_name': 'test', 'last_name': 'user'}
response = self.client.put(url, data, format='json')
self.assertEqual(response.status_code, status.HTTP_200_OK)

Answer 2

The format of your query parameters is incorrect.
If you want the result to be {'fields': ['last_name', 'first_name']}, then your POST url should be .../users/?fields=first_name&fields=last_name'. You'll probably want to access the params using getlist().

Answer 3

1) Regarding empty <QueryDict: {}> in client.get('/api/v2/resource/1/users/?fields=first_name;last_name') - there was my mistake in my code. I had two tests with the same name, one of which indeed has empty <QueryDict: {}>. So, when running tests, django ran the test with <QueryDict: {}>
2) Regarding incorrect parsing of query params in client.post('/api/v2/resource/1/users/?fields=first_name;last_name'), I found the following discussion. So, django basically follows HTTP standards, where it is said that ; semicolon is reserved character and if using, than the correct way to comprehend it same as &. Here more details