Django - an HttpRequest object does not have a 'session' attribute

Question

I can not make sessions work. Django complains that HttpRequest objects do not have an attribute called "session". The documentation clearly states that if you have middleware and django.contrib.sessions in your installed applications, then you're good to go. I get this error using unit tests.

In my views.py:

def home_page(request): response = render(request, 'home.html', {'message_text' : request.session.get('message_text', ''), 'ip_address' : request.session.get('ip_address', ''), 'port_number' : request.session.get('port_number', ''), 'command_text' : request.session.get('command_text', ''),}) request.session['message_text'] = '' return response 

The session values ​​I'm trying to get are the ones I'm trying to set in my post post method elsewhere in views.py.

It also states that they are enabled by default for new projects. So I created a new django project and checked the session attribute in the console. Here is what I did:

 (django1.5)Python $ django-admin.py startproject testing (django1.5)Python $ cd testing/ (django1.5)testing $ python manage.py shell Python 2.7.3 (v2.7.3:70274d53c1dd, Apr 9 2012, 20:52:43) [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. (InteractiveConsole) >>> from django.http import HttpRequest >>> r = HttpRequest() >>> r.session Traceback (most recent call last): File "<console>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: 'HttpRequest' object has no attribute 'session' >>> 

What am I missing?

UPDATE: This only happens when testing with unit tests. Here is a test that throws an exception:

 def test_home_page_returns_correct_html(self): request = HttpRequest() response = home_page(request) expected_html = render_to_string('home.html') self.assertEqual(response.content, expected_html) 

Answer 1

Add the following to the top of your test file:

 from django.conf import settings from django.utils.importlib import import_module 

Then this should work:

 def test_home_page_returns_correct_html(self): request = HttpRequest() engine = import_module(settings.SESSION_ENGINE) session_key = None request.session = engine.SessionStore(session_key) response = home_page(request) expected_html = render_to_string('home.html') self.assertEqual(response.content, expected_html) 

Answer 2

The solution is to create the session attribute on the HttpRequest object yourself before passing it to the view function. This is because the HttpRequest Factory does not support middleware in unit tests according to the answer in: Using the session object in the Django unit test

Answer 3

For testing purposes, it can be quite simple to use a Mock object , which creates the behavior necessary to check the view or other isolated part without with code that you do not want to test (for example, session middleware).

Answer 4

when django1.10 -> django1.9. Error: request object does not have a session attribute

Due to a change in middleware settings.

in settings 1.10:

 MIDDLEWARE = [ 'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware', 'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware', xxx ] 

but settings 1.9:

 MIDDLEWARE_CLASSES = [ 'django.middleware.security.SecurityMiddleware', 'django.contrib.sessions.middleware.SessionMiddleware', xxx ]