Running django tutorial tests fail - No module named polls.tests

Question

I'm playing with django 1.6 tutorial but i can't run tests. My project (name mydjango) and app structure (name is polls) are as shown below in a virtualenv. (.nja files are just created by ninja-ide the ide I'm using)

. ├── __init__.py ├── manage.py ├── mydjango │   ├── __init__.py │   ├── __init__.pyc │   ├── mydjango.nja │   ├── settings.py │   ├── settings.pyc │   ├── templates │   │   └── admin │   │       └── base_site.html │   ├── urls.py │   ├── urls.pyc │   ├── wsgi.py │   └── wsgi.pyc ├── polls │   ├── admin.py │   ├── admin.pyc │   ├── __init__.py │   ├── __init__.pyc │   ├── models.py │   ├── models.pyc │   ├── templates │   │   ├── __init__.py │   │   └── polls │   │       ├── detail.html │   │       ├── index.html │   │       ├── __init__.py │   │       └── results.html │   ├── tests.py │   ├── tests.pyc │   ├── urls.py │   ├── urls.pyc │   ├── views.py │   └── views.pyc └── polls.nja 

I followed the tutorial to understand how django works but I'm stuck in the test part. As tutorial suggest I created a file named tests.py into the app folder, the pretty straightforward file is:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*- from django.test import TestCase import datetime from django.utils import timezone from polls.models import Question  # Create your tests here.l   class QuestionMethodTests(TestCase):      def test_was_published_recently_with_future_poll(self):         """         was_published_recently dovrebbe ritornare falso se si mette una data nel futuro         """         future_question = Question(pub_date=timezone.now() + datetime.timedelta(hours=50))         self.assertEqual(future_question.was_published_recently(), False) 

then i installed unittest2 into the virtualenv with

$pip install unittest2 

and run

$python manage.py test polls Creating test database for alias 'default'... E ====================================================================== ERROR: mydjango.polls.tests (unittest2.loader.ModuleImportFailure) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImportError: Failed to import test module: mydjango.polls.tests Traceback (most recent call last):   File "/home/sergio/.virtualenvs/django4/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/unittest2/loader.py", line 260, in _find_tests     module = self._get_module_from_name(name)   File "/home/sergio/.virtualenvs/django4/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/unittest2/loader.py", line 238, in _get_module_from_name     __import__(name) ImportError: No module named polls.tests   ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ran 1 test in 0.001s  FAILED (errors=1) Destroying test database for alias 'default'... 

No way to have the test working, also if don't pass the app name it returns the same error:

$ python manage.py test Creating test database for alias 'default'... E ====================================================================== ERROR: mydjango.polls.tests (unittest2.loader.ModuleImportFailure) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ImportError: Failed to import test module: mydjango.polls.tests Traceback (most recent call last):   File "/home/sergio/.virtualenvs/django4/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/unittest2/loader.py", line 260, in _find_tests     module = self._get_module_from_name(name)   File "/home/sergio/.virtualenvs/django4/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/unittest2/loader.py", line 238, in _get_module_from_name     __import__(name) ImportError: No module named polls.tests   ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Ran 1 test in 0.001s  FAILED (errors=1) Destroying test database for alias 'default'... 

My INSTALLED_APPS are:

INSTALLED_APPS = (     'south',     'django.contrib.admin',     'django.contrib.auth',     'django.contrib.contenttypes',     'django.contrib.sessions',     'django.contrib.messages',     'django.contrib.staticfiles',     'polls', ) 

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

I had exactly the same issue with my Django project:

$ python manage test polls.tests 

worked fine whereas the following failed with an import error:

$ python manage test polls $ python manage test (...) ImportError: Failed to import test module: mydjango.polls.tests Traceback (most recent call last): (...) ImportError: No module named polls.tests 

Check carefully the error message: Django's test runner tries to import the tests from mydjango.polls.tests where mydjango is the name of the root directory (the container for your project).

I fixed this issue by deleting the __init__.py file in mydjango directory (at the same level than manage.py file). This directory is not supposed to be a python module and it seems to mess up with Django's test runner if it is the case.

So just deleting the _init_.py file should fix our problem:

$ rm mydjango/__init__.py 

Answer 2

For anyone else having the same problem, another reason for this to happen is if you have the same name for the root folder and the project folder.

For example:

mydjango ├── __init__.py ├── manage.py ├── mydjango │   ├── __init__.py │   ├── settings.py │   ├── urls.py │   ├── wsgi.py ├── polls │   ├── admin.py │   ├── __init__.py │   ├── models.py |   ├── tests.py │   ├── templates 

running ./manage.py test

throws errors No module named polls.tests

to fix it simply rename the root folder to something else like :

mydjango_project ├── __init__.py ├── manage.py ├── mydjango │   ├── __init__.py │   ├── settings.py │   ├── urls.py │   ├── wsgi.py ├── polls │   ├── admin.py │   ├── __init__.py │   ├── models.py |   ├── tests.py │   ├── templates