Use Django in-memory file storage with pytest

In my current project, I create PDF files from Jinja2/LaTeX templates. In each test run, several PDFs are created and saved to disk. How do you test this without filling up the hard drive?

I use an in-memory data storage. For Django there is a package that makes it really easy: dj-inmemorystorage.

A non-persistent in-memory data storage backend for Django.

Using pytest fixtures:

# tests/conftest.py
import pytest
import inmemorystorage

from django.conf import settings

@pytest.fixture
def in_memory():
    settings.DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'inmemorystorage.InMemoryStorage'

That’s it. When using this in_memory fixture in a test function, the files will never be written on disk.

Update 5/9/2017

It’s actually much easier than this. I now configure the in-memory file storage directly in the Django configuration file that pytest uses.

# config/settings/testing.py
"""Django configuration for testing and CI environments."""
from .common import *

# Use in-memory file storage
DEFAULT_FILE_STORAGE = 'inmemorystorage.InMemoryStorage'