Can I set up a database just for django testing? - django

Question

Creating a temp database when running django testing is really time-consuming, so I have a thought to set up a separate database just for django testing. Is it possible? If so, how can i achieve it?
to be more specific: I don't want django to create a new database and do migration and test and destroy every single time I run ./manage.py test. I want it to connect to an existing database(When i already created for testing) and do all the work.

Answer 1

You can use the --keepdb option when running the test, so that the database is not destroyed at the end of each run.
./manage.py test --keepdb

Answer 2

I'm not sure if I understand your question, but when I do testing on development, I just use SQLite. SQLite is my testing database. When I put it on production, I use PostgreSQL. This is my settings.py when I'm testing on development:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.sqlite3',
'NAME': os.path.join(BASE_DIR, 'db.sqlite3'),
}
}
I used to use PostgreSQL for testing as well (I switched to SQLite because it is quicker to set up).
If I am testing with PostgreSQL, my settings.py would look like this:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
'NAME': 'TESTDB',
'USER': 'mydatabaseuser',
'PASSWORD': 'mypassword',
'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
'PORT': '5432',
}
}
and when I'm not testing, I'd use this:
DATABASES = {
'default': {
'ENGINE': 'django.db.backends.postgresql_psycopg2',
'NAME': 'ProductionDB',
'USER': 'mydatabaseuser',
'PASSWORD': 'mypassword',
'HOST': '127.0.0.1',
'PORT': '5432',
}
}
Like I mentioned earlier though, I started using SQLite for testing because it is quicker.