Testing WSGI Applications

Test Client

Werkzeug provides a Client to simulate requests to a WSGI application without starting a server. The client has methods for making different types of requests, as well as managing cookies across requests.

>>> from werkzeug.test import Client
>>> from werkzeug.testapp import test_app
>>> c = Client(test_app)
>>> response = c.get("/")
>>> response.status_code
200
>>> resp.headers
Headers([('Content-Type', 'text/html; charset=utf-8'), ('Content-Length', '6658')])
>>> response.get_data(as_text=True)
'<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"...'

The client’s request methods return instances of TestResponse. This provides extra attributes and methods on top of Response that are useful for testing.

Request Body

By passing a dict to data, the client will construct a request body with file and form data. It will set the content type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded if there are no files, or multipart/form-data there are.

import io

response = client.post(data={
    "name": "test",
    "file": (BytesIO("file contents".encode("utf8")), "test.txt")
})

Pass a string, bytes, or file-like object to data to use that as the raw request body. In that case, you should set the content type appropriately. For example, to post YAML:

response = client.post(
    data="a: value\nb: 1\n", content_type="application/yaml"
)

A shortcut when testing JSON APIs is to pass a dict to json instead of using data. This will automatically call json.dumps() and set the content type to application/json. Additionally, if the app returns JSON, response.json will automatically call json.loads().

response = client.post("/api", json={"a": "value", "b": 1})
obj = response.json()

Environment Builder

EnvironBuilder is used to construct a WSGI environ dict. The test client uses this internally to prepare its requests. The arguments passed to the client request methods are the same as the builder.

Sometimes, it can be useful to construct a WSGI environment manually. An environ builder or dict can be passed to the test client request methods in place of other arguments to use a custom environ.

from werkzeug.test import EnvironBuilder
builder = EnvironBuilder(...)
# build an environ dict
environ = builder.get_environ()
# build an environ dict wrapped in a request
request = builder.get_request()

The test client responses make this available through TestResponse.request and response.request.environ.

API

class werkzeug.test.Client(application, response_wrapper=None, use_cookies=True, allow_subdomain_redirects=False)

This class allows you to send requests to a wrapped application.

The use_cookies parameter indicates whether cookies should be stored and sent for subsequent requests. This is True by default, but passing False will disable this behaviour.

If you want to request some subdomain of your application you may set allow_subdomain_redirects to True as if not no external redirects are allowed.

Changed in version 2.0: response_wrapper is always a subclass of :class:TestResponse.

Changelog

Changed in version 0.5: Added the use_cookies parameter.

Parameters

application (WSGIApplication) –
response_wrapper (Optional[Type[Response]]) –
use_cookies (bool) –
allow_subdomain_redirects (bool) –

Return type

None

set_cookie(server_name, key, value='', max_age=None, expires=None, path='/', domain=None, secure=False, httponly=False, samesite=None, charset='utf-8')

Sets a cookie in the client’s cookie jar. The server name is required and has to match the one that is also passed to the open call.

Parameters

server_name (str) –
key (str) –
value (str) –
max_age (Optional[Union[datetime.timedelta, int]]) –
expires (Optional[Union[str, datetime.datetime, int, float]]) –
path (str) –
domain (Optional[str]) –
secure (bool) –
httponly (bool) –
samesite (Optional[str]) –
charset (str) –

Return type

None

delete_cookie(server_name, key, path='/', domain=None, secure=False, httponly=False, samesite=None)

Deletes a cookie in the test client.

Parameters

server_name (str) –
key (str) –
path (str) –
domain (Optional[str]) –
secure (bool) –
httponly (bool) –
samesite (Optional[str]) –

Return type

None

open(*args, as_tuple=False, buffered=False, follow_redirects=False, **kwargs)

Generate an environ dict from the given arguments, make a request to the application using it, and return the response.

Parameters

args (Any) – Passed to EnvironBuilder to create the environ for the request. If a single arg is passed, it can be an existing EnvironBuilder or an environ dict.
buffered (bool) – Convert the iterator returned by the app into a list. If the iterator has a close() method, it is called automatically.
follow_redirects (bool) – Make additional requests to follow HTTP redirects until a non-redirect status is returned. TestResponse.history lists the intermediate responses.
as_tuple (bool) –
kwargs (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

Changed in version 2.0: as_tuple is deprecated and will be removed in Werkzeug 2.1. Use TestResponse.request and request.environ instead.

Changed in version 2.0: The request input stream is closed when calling response.close(). Input streams for redirects are automatically closed.

Changelog

Changed in version 0.5: If a dict is provided as file in the dict for the data parameter the content type has to be called content_type instead of mimetype. This change was made for consistency with werkzeug.FileWrapper.

Changed in version 0.5: Added the follow_redirects parameter.

get(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to GET.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

post(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to POST.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

put(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to PUT.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

delete(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to DELETE.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

patch(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to PATCH.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

options(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to OPTIONS.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

head(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to HEAD.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

trace(*args, **kw)

Call open() with method set to TRACE.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kw (Any) –

Return type

werkzeug.test.TestResponse

class werkzeug.test.TestResponse(response, status, headers, request, history=(), **kwargs)

Response subclass that provides extra information about requests made with the test Client.

Test client requests will always return an instance of this class. If a custom response class is passed to the client, it is subclassed along with this to support test information.

If the test request included large files, or if the application is serving a file, call close() to close any open files and prevent Python showing a ResourceWarning.

Parameters

response (Union[Iterable[str], Iterable[bytes]]) –
status (str) –
headers (werkzeug.datastructures.Headers) –
request (werkzeug.wrappers.request.Request) –
history (Tuple[werkzeug.test.TestResponse, ...]) –
kwargs (Any) –

Return type

None

request: werkzeug.wrappers.request.Request: A request object with the environ used to make the request that resulted in this response.

history: Tuple[werkzeug.test.TestResponse, ...]: A list of intermediate responses. Populated when the test request is made with follow_redirects enabled.

class werkzeug.test.EnvironBuilder(path='/', base_url=None, query_string=None, method='GET', input_stream=None, content_type=None, content_length=None, errors_stream=None, multithread=False, multiprocess=False, run_once=False, headers=None, data=None, environ_base=None, environ_overrides=None, charset='utf-8', mimetype=None, json=None, auth=None)

This class can be used to conveniently create a WSGI environment for testing purposes. It can be used to quickly create WSGI environments or request objects from arbitrary data.

The signature of this class is also used in some other places as of Werkzeug 0.5 (create_environ(), Response.from_values(), Client.open()). Because of this most of the functionality is available through the constructor alone.

Files and regular form data can be manipulated independently of each other with the form and files attributes, but are passed with the same argument to the constructor: data.

data can be any of these values:

a str or bytes object: The object is converted into an input_stream, the content_length is set and you have to provide a content_type.
a dict or MultiDict: The keys have to be strings. The values have to be either any of the following objects, or a list of any of the following objects:
- a file-like object: These are converted into FileStorage objects automatically.
- a tuple: The add_file() method is called with the key and the unpacked tuple items as positional arguments.
- a str: The string is set as form data for the associated key.
a file-like object: The object content is loaded in memory and then handled like a regular str or a bytes.

Parameters

path (str) – the path of the request. In the WSGI environment this will end up as PATH_INFO. If the query_string is not defined and there is a question mark in the path everything after it is used as query string.
base_url (Optional[str]) – the base URL is a URL that is used to extract the WSGI URL scheme, host (server name + server port) and the script root (SCRIPT_NAME).
query_string (Optional[Union[Mapping[str, str], str]]) – an optional string or dict with URL parameters.
method (str) – the HTTP method to use, defaults to GET.
input_stream (Optional[BinaryIO]) – an optional input stream. Do not specify this and data. As soon as an input stream is set you can’t modify args and files unless you set the input_stream to None again.
content_type (Optional[str]) – The content type for the request. As of 0.5 you don’t have to provide this when specifying files and form data via data.
content_length (Optional[int]) – The content length for the request. You don’t have to specify this when providing data via data.
errors_stream (Optional[TextIO]) – an optional error stream that is used for wsgi.errors. Defaults to stderr.
multithread (bool) – controls wsgi.multithread. Defaults to False.
multiprocess (bool) – controls wsgi.multiprocess. Defaults to False.
run_once (bool) – controls wsgi.run_once. Defaults to False.
headers (Optional[Union[werkzeug.datastructures.Headers, Iterable[Tuple[str, str]]]]) – an optional list or Headers object of headers.
data (Optional[Union[BinaryIO, str, bytes, Mapping[str, Any]]]) – a string or dict of form data or a file-object. See explanation above.
json (Optional[Mapping[str, Any]]) – An object to be serialized and assigned to data. Defaults the content type to "application/json". Serialized with the function assigned to json_dumps.
environ_base (Optional[Mapping[str, Any]]) – an optional dict of environment defaults.
environ_overrides (Optional[Mapping[str, Any]]) – an optional dict of environment overrides.
charset (str) – the charset used to encode string data.
auth (Optional[Union[werkzeug.datastructures.Authorization, Tuple[str, str]]]) – An authorization object to use for the Authorization header value. A (username, password) tuple is a shortcut for Basic authorization.
mimetype (Optional[str]) –

Return type

None

Changed in version 2.0: REQUEST_URI and RAW_URI is the full raw URI including the query string, not only the path.

Changed in version 2.0: The default request_class is Request instead of BaseRequest.

New in version 2.0: Added the auth parameter.

Changelog

New in version 0.15: The json param and json_dumps() method.

New in version 0.15: The environ has keys REQUEST_URI and RAW_URI containing the path before perecent-decoding. This is not part of the WSGI PEP, but many WSGI servers include it.

Changed in version 0.6: path and base_url can now be unicode strings that are encoded with iri_to_uri().

server_protocol = 'HTTP/1.1': the server protocol to use. defaults to HTTP/1.1

wsgi_version = (1, 0): the wsgi version to use. defaults to (1, 0)

request_class: alias of werkzeug.wrappers.request.Request

static json_dumps(obj, *, skipkeys=False, ensure_ascii=True, check_circular=True, allow_nan=True, cls=None, indent=None, separators=None, default=None, sort_keys=False, **kw): The serialization function used when json is passed.

classmethod from_environ(environ, **kwargs)

Turn an environ dict back into a builder. Any extra kwargs override the args extracted from the environ.

Changed in version 2.0: Path and query values are passed through the WSGI decoding dance to avoid double encoding.

Changelog

New in version 0.15.

Parameters

environ (WSGIEnvironment) –
kwargs (Any) –

Return type

EnvironBuilder

property base_url: str: The base URL is used to extract the URL scheme, host name, port, and root path.

property content_type: Optional[str]: The content type for the request. Reflected from and to the headers. Do not set if you set files or form for auto detection.

property mimetype: Optional[str]: The mimetype (content type without charset etc.)

Changelog

New in version 0.14.

property mimetype_params: Mapping[str, str]: The mimetype parameters as dict. For example if the content type is text/html; charset=utf-8 the params would be {'charset': 'utf-8'}.

Changelog

New in version 0.14.

property content_length: Optional[int]: The content length as integer. Reflected from and to the headers. Do not set if you set files or form for auto detection.

property form: werkzeug.datastructures.MultiDict: A MultiDict of form values.

property files: werkzeug.datastructures.FileMultiDict: A FileMultiDict of uploaded files. Use add_file() to add new files.

property input_stream: Optional[BinaryIO]: An optional input stream. This is mutually exclusive with setting form and files, setting it will clear those. Do not provide this if the method is not POST or another method that has a body.

property query_string: str: The query string. If you set this to a string args will no longer be available.

property args: werkzeug.datastructures.MultiDict: The URL arguments as MultiDict.

property server_name: str: The server name (read-only, use host to set)

property server_port: int: The server port as integer (read-only, use host to set)

close()

Closes all files. If you put real file objects into the files dict you can call this method to automatically close them all in one go.

Return type: None

get_environ()

Return the built environ.

Changelog

Changed in version 0.15: The content type and length headers are set based on input stream detection. Previously this only set the WSGI keys.

Return type: WSGIEnvironment

get_request(cls=None)

Returns a request with the data. If the request class is not specified request_class is used.

Parameters: cls (Optional[Type[werkzeug.wrappers.request.Request]]) – The request wrapper to use.
Return type: werkzeug.wrappers.request.Request

werkzeug.test.create_environ(*args, **kwargs)

Create a new WSGI environ dict based on the values passed. The first parameter should be the path of the request which defaults to ‘/’. The second one can either be an absolute path (in that case the host is localhost:80) or a full path to the request with scheme, netloc port and the path to the script.

This accepts the same arguments as the EnvironBuilder constructor.

Changelog

Changed in version 0.5: This function is now a thin wrapper over EnvironBuilder which was added in 0.5. The headers, environ_base, environ_overrides and charset parameters were added.

Parameters

args (Any) –
kwargs (Any) –

Return type

WSGIEnvironment

werkzeug.test.run_wsgi_app(app, environ, buffered=False)

Return a tuple in the form (app_iter, status, headers) of the application output. This works best if you pass it an application that returns an iterator all the time.

Sometimes applications may use the write() callable returned by the start_response function. This tries to resolve such edge cases automatically. But if you don’t get the expected output you should set buffered to True which enforces buffering.

If passed an invalid WSGI application the behavior of this function is undefined. Never pass non-conforming WSGI applications to this function.

Parameters

app (WSGIApplication) – the application to execute.
buffered (bool) – set to True to enforce buffering.
environ (WSGIEnvironment) –

Returns

tuple in the form (app_iter, status, headers)

Return type

Tuple[Iterable[bytes], str, werkzeug.datastructures.Headers]