testing django web app that uses cookies/session - django

Question

In views.py:
get_dict = Site.objects.getDictionary(request.COOKIES['siteid'])
{gets a dictionary with site information based on id from cookie}
In tests.py:
from django.test import TestCase
class WebAppTest(TestCase):
def test_status(self):
response = self.client.get('/main/',{})
response.status_code # --->passed with code 200
response = self.client.get('/webpage/',{'blog':1})
response.status_code # ----> this is failing
In order to present blog page it goes to a view where it gets a dictionary using existing cookie, process it, renders templates, which works fine when running the app. But the tests are failing.Having never tested Django webapps I'm not sure how to test it right. Here is the traceback.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<console>", line 2, in <module>
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/django/test/client.py", line 313, in post
response = self.request(**r)
File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/django/core/handlers/base.py", line 92, in get_response
response = callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs)
File "/var/lib/django/data/../webpage/views.py", line 237, in getCostInfo
get_dict = Site.objects.getDictionary(request.COOKIES['siteid'])
KeyError: 'siteid'
Went through some online samples but couldn't find something that deals in depth with cookies/sessions. Any ideas or directs to useful links are highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Take a look at the Persistent State section of the Django Testing docs.
In your case, I would expect your test to be something more like:
from django.test import TestCase
from django.test.client import Client
class WebAppTest(TestCase):
def setUp(self):
self.client = Client()
session = self.client.session
session['siteid'] = 69 ## Or any valid siteid.
session.save()
def test_status(self):
response = self.client.get('/main/',{})
self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)
response = self.client.get('/webpage/',{'blog':1})
self.assertEqual(response.status_code, 200)