Persistant login during django selenium tests - selenium-webdriver

Question

Here the snippet I'm using for my end-to-end tests using selenium (i'm totally new in selenium django testing) ;
from django.contrib.auth.models import User
from django.contrib.staticfiles.testing import StaticLiveServerTestCase
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.webdriver import WebDriver
class MyTest(StaticLiveServerTestCase):
#classmethod
def setUpClass(cls):
super(DashboardTest, cls).setUpClass()
cls.selenium = WebDriver()
cls.user = User.objects.create_superuser(username=...,
password=...,
email=...)
time.sleep(1)
cls._login()
#classmethod
def _login(cls):
cls.selenium.get(
'%s%s' % (cls.live_server_url, '/admin/login/?next=/'))
...
def test_login(self):
self.selenium.implicitly_wait(10)
self.assertIn(self.username,
self.selenium.find_element_by_class_name("fixtop").text)
def test_go_to_dashboard(self):
query_json, saved_entry = self._create_entry()
self.selenium.get(
'%s%s' % (
self.live_server_url, '/dashboard/%d/' % saved_entry.id))
# assert on displayed values
def self._create_entry():
# create an entry using form and returns it
def test_create(self):
self.maxDiff = None
query_json, saved_entry = self._create_entry()
... assert on displayed values
I'm noticed that between each test the login is not persistant. So i can use _login in the setUp but make my tests slower.
So how to keep persistant login between test ? What are the best practices for testing those tests (djnago selenium tests) ?

Answer 1

Through-the-browser tests with Selenium are slow, period. They are, however, very valuable as they're the best shot you have at automating the true user experience.
You shouldn't try to write true unit tests with Selenium. Instead, use it to write one or two large functional tests. Try to capture an entire user interaction from start to finish. Then structure your test suite so that you can run your fast, non-Selenium unit tests separately, and only have to run the slow functional tests on occasion.
Your code looks fine, but in this scenario you'd combine test_go_to_dashboard and test_create into one method.

Answer 2

kevinharvey pointed me to the solution! Finally found out a way to reduce time of testing and keeping track of all tests:
I have renamed all methods starting with test.. to _test_.. and added a main method that calls each _test_ method:
def test_main(self):
for attr in dir(self):
# call each test and avoid recursive call
if attr.startswith('_test_') and attr != self.test_main.__name__:
with self.subTest("subtest %s " % attr):
self.selenium.get(self.live_server_url)
getattr(self, attr)()
This way, I can test (debug) individually each method :)