Test Django data migrations

test_django_data_migration.py

"""
Test (data) migrations in Django.

This uses py.test/pytest-django (the `transactional_db` fixture comes from there),
but could be easily adopted for Django's testrunner:

    from django.test.testcases import TransactionTestCase

    class FooTestcase(TransactionTestCase):
        def test_with_django(self):
        …

This example tests that some fields are properly migrated from a `Profile` model
to `User`.
"""

from django.db import connection
from django.db.migrations.executor import MigrationExecutor


def test_migrate_profile_to_user(transactional_db):
    executor = MigrationExecutor(connection)
    app = "YOUR_APP"
    migrate_from = [(app, "000X_before")]
    migrate_to = [(app, "000X_after")]

    executor.migrate(migrate_from)
    old_apps = executor.loader.project_state(migrate_from).apps

    # Create some old data.
    Profile = old_apps.get_model(app, "Profile")
    old_profile = Profile.objects.create(email="email",
                                         firstname="firstname",
                                         lastname="lastname")
    # Migrate forwards.
    executor.loader.build_graph()  # reload.
    executor.migrate(migrate_to)
    new_apps = executor.loader.project_state(migrate_to).apps

    # Test the new data.
    Profile = new_apps.get_model(app, "Profile")
    User = new_apps.get_model(app, "UserEntry")
    assert 'firstname' not in Profile._meta.get_all_field_names()

    user = User.objects.get(email='email')
    profile = Profile.objects.get(user__email='email')
    assert user.profile.pk == old_profile.pk == profile.pk
    assert profile.user.email == 'email'
    assert profile.user.first_name == 'firstname'
    assert profile.user.last_name == 'lastname'

If you want to disable all migrations for regular test code and also want to test migration scenario, you can try this.
Any feedback would be welcome and I explained this at https://stackoverflow.com/a/46312855/2951749
The code base is here https://www.caktusgroup.com/blog/2016/02/02/writing-unit-tests-django-migrations/

settings.py

MIGRATION_MODULES = {app: None for app in INSTALLED_APPS}

Test.py

class TestMigrations(TestCase):
    origin_modules = getattr(settings, 'MIGRATION_MODULES', {})
    setattr(settings, 'MIGRATION_MODULES', {})
    
    ...

    @classmethod
    def tearDownClass(cls):
        setattr(settings, 'MIGRATION_MODULES', cls.origin_modules)
        super().tearDownClass()

Thanks @TauPan your version worked for me on Django 2.0 too.

Unfortunately, there is no support for pytest.raises for exceptions that occur during migrations, and possibly other issues, let's try to discuss it over at pytest-dev/pytest-django#593

EDIT: I used @TauPan's updates (Gist-spection!) and cleaned my own fork a bit and allowed specifying a list of target migrations (when conditions span across multiple apps).

I have made a pypi package out of this gist with some extra features.
Check it out: https://github.com/wemake-services/django-test-migrations