Django test client returns an anonymous user after login

Question

I have implemented user login in Django using the following code;

In my urls.py;

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    url(r'^login/', UserLogin.as_view(), name='userlogin'),
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In my views.py;

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from django.contrib.auth.forms import AuthenticationForm    
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class UserLogin(FormView):
    form_class = AuthenticationForm
    template_name = "auth/login.html"

    def get_success_url(self):
        return reverse('userhome', kwargs={'pk': self.request.user.id})
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.
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and my auth/login.html is;

{% block head %}
  <title>Open Radio | Login</title>
{% endblock %}

{% block body %}
  <header>
    <h1>Open Radio</h1>
    <h2>Login Page</h2>
  </header>

  <section>
    {% if form.errors %}
      <p>Your username and password didn't match, please try again.  </p>
    {% endif %}

    <form method="post" action=".">
      {% csrf_token %}
      <p>
        <label for="id_username">Username:</label>
        {{ form.username }}
      </p>
      <p>
        <label for="id_password">Password:</label>
        {{ form.password }}
      </p>
      {% if next %}
        <input type="hidden" name="next" value="{{ next }}" />
      {% endif %}
      <input type="submit" value="login" />
    </form>
  </section>
{% endblock %}

It works and does take me to the user's home page that I have defined.

But when I run the following test;

class TestLoginPage(TestCase):
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    .     

    def test_page_logs_in(self):
        """
        Tests if the login page actually logs a user in
        """
        username = "someusername"
        password = "somepassword"
        user = User(username=username,
                    password=password)
        user.save()
        response = self.client.post(reverse("userlogin"),
                                    {"username":username,
                                     "password":password},
                                    follow=True)
        assert response.context["user"].is_authenticated()

I get the following failure;

self = <stationrunner.tests.TestLoginPage testMethod=test_page_logs_in>

    def test_page_logs_in(self):
        """
        Tests if the login page actually logs a user in
        """
        username = "someusername"
        password = "somepassword"
        user = User(username=username,
                    password=password)
        user.save()
        response = self.client.post(reverse("userlogin"),
                                    {"username":username,
                                     "password":password},
                                    follow=True)
>       assert response.context["user"].is_authenticated()
E       AssertionError: assert <bound method   AnonymousUser.is_authenticated of   <django.contrib.auth.models.AnonymousUser object at 0x7f54b5433a50>>()
E        +  where <bound method AnonymousUser.is_authenticated of  <django.contrib.auth.models.AnonymousUser object at 0x7f54b5433a50>> =   <SimpleLazyObject: <django.contrib.auth.models.AnonymousUser object at   0x7f54b5433a50>>.is_authenticated

Could anyone please explain why is this happening

Answer 1

That login won't succeed because Django expects the password to be a hash but you have saved it in plain text. Do this instead:

user = User.objects.create_user(username=username, password=password)

Edit

Your problem is quite simply that your UserLogin view, despite the name, never actually logs the user in. The AuthenticationForm does what its name implies, ie authenticates, but then does not do anything with that authenticated user to log them in.

At the very least, you would need to call login() somewhere in your view; but there doesn't seem to be a good reason for you to be using your own custom view here rather than the built-in django.contrib.auth.views.login view.