How to contribute a patch¶

The basics¶

The basic workflow for a code contribution will typically run as follows:

1. Fork the django CMS project GitHub repository to your own GitHub account

2. Clone your fork locally:

   git clone git@github.com:YOUR_USERNAME/django-cms.git
   

3. Create a virtualenv:

   virtualenv cms-develop
   source cms-develop/bin/activate
   

4. Install its dependencies:

   cd django-cms
   pip install -r test_requirements/django-X.Y.txt
   

   Replace X.Y with whichever version of Django you want to work with.

5. Create a new branch for your work:

   git checkout -b my_fix
   

6. Edit the django CMS codebase to implement the fix or feature.

7. Run the test suite:

   python manage.py test
   

8. Commit and push your code:

   git commit
   git push origin my_fix
   

9. Open a pull request on GitHub.

How to write a test¶

The django CMS test suite contains a mix of unit tests, functional tests, regression tests and integration tests.

Depending on your contribution, you will write a mix of them.

Let’s start with something simple. We’ll assume you have set up your environment correctly as described above.

Let’s say you want to test the behaviour of the CMSPluginBase.render method:

class CMSPluginBase(admin.ModelAdmin, metaclass=CMSPluginBaseMetaclass):

    ...

    def render(self, context, instance, placeholder):
        context['instance'] = instance
        context['placeholder'] = placeholder
        return context

Writing a unit test for it will require us to test whether the returned context object contains the declared attributes with the correct values.

We will start with a new class in an existing django CMS test module (cms.tests.plugins in this case):

class SimplePluginTestCase(CMSTestCase):
    pass

Let’s try to run it:

python manage.py test cms.tests.test_plugins.SimplePluginTestCase

This will call the new test case class only and it’s handy when creating new tests and iterating quickly through the steps. A full test run (python manage.py test) is required before opening a pull request.

This is the output you’ll get:

Creating test database for alias 'default'...

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 0 tests in 0.000s

OK

Which is correct as we have no test in our test case. Let’s add an empty one:

class SimplePluginTestCase(CMSTestCase):

    def test_render_method(self):
        pass

Running the test command again will return a slightly different output:

Creating test database for alias 'default'...
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.001s

OK

This looks better, but it’s not that meaningful as we’re not testing anything.

Write a real test:

class SimplePluginTestCase(CMSTestCase):

    def test_render_method(self):
        """
        Tests the CMSPluginBase.render method by checking that the appropriate variables
        are set in the returned context
        """
        from cms.api import create_page
        my_page = create_page('home', language='en', template='col_two.html')
        placeholder = my_page.placeholders.get(slot='col_left')
        context = self.get_context('/', page=my_page)
        plugin = CMSPluginBase()

        new_context = plugin.render(context, None, placeholder)
        self.assertTrue('placeholder' in new_context)
        self.assertEqual(placeholder, context['placeholder'])
        self.assertTrue('instance' in new_context)
        self.assertIsNone(new_context['instance'])

and run it:

Creating test database for alias 'default'...
.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.044s

OK

The output is quite similar to the previous run, but the longer execution time gives us a hint that this test is actually doing something.

Let’s quickly check the test code.

To test CMSPluginBase.render method we need a RequestContext instance and a placeholder. As CMSPluginBase does not have any configuration model, the instance argument can be None.

1. Create a page instance to get the placeholder

2. Get the placeholder by filtering the placeholders of the page instance on the expected placeholder name

3. Create a context instance by using the provided super class method

4. Call the render method on a CMSPluginBase instance; being stateless, it’s easy to call render of a bare instance of the CMSPluginBase class, which helps in tests

5. Assert a few things the method must provide on the returned context instance

As you see, even a simple test like this assumes and uses many feature of the test utilities provided by django CMS. Before attempting to write a test, take your time to explore the content of cms.test_utils package and check the shipped templates, example applications and, most of all, the base testcases defined in cms.test_utils.testscases which provide a lot of useful methods to prepare the environment for our tests or to create useful test data.

Submitting your code¶

After the code and the tests are ready and packed in commits, you must submit it for review and merge in the django CMS GitHub project.

As noted above, always create a new branch for your code, be it a fix or a new feature, before committing changes, then create your pull request from your branch to the target branch on django CMS.