Added a Django test runner to contrib that sets CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER = True for testing with the database backend. Also added a cookbook on unit testing that uses the test runner and builds on the FeedImporter cookbook

contrib/test_runner.py

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+from django.conf import settings
+from django.test.simple import run_tests as run_tests_orig
+
+USAGE = """\
+Custom test runner to allow testing of celery .delay() tasks.
+"""
+
+def run_tests(test_labels, *args, **kwargs):
+    settings.CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER = True
+    return run_tests_orig(test_labels, *args, **kwargs)
+

docs/cookbook/index.rst

@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@
     tasks
     task-retries
     remote-tasks
+    unit-testing
 
 This page contains common recipes and techniques.
 Whenever a setting is mentioned, you should use ``celeryconf.py`` if using

docs/cookbook/unit-testing.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+================
+ Unit Testing
+================
+
+
+Testing with Django
+-------------------
+
+The problem that you'll first run in to when trying to write a test that runs a
+task is that Django's testrunner doesn't use the same database that your celery
+daemon is using. If you're using the database backend, this means that your
+tombstones won't show up in your test database and you won't be able to check
+on your tasks to get the return value or check the status.
+
+There are two ways to get around this. You can either take advantage of
+``CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER = True`` to skip the daemon, or you can avoid testing
+anything that needs to check the status or result of a task.
+
+Using a custom testrunner to test with celery
+---------------------------------------------
+
+If you're going the ``CELERY_ALWAYS_EAGER`` route, which is probably better than
+just never testing some parts of your app, a custom Django testrunner does the
+trick. Celery provides a simple testrunner, but it's easy enough to roll your
+own if you have other things that need to be done.
+http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/topics/testing/#defining-a-test-runner
+
+For this example, we'll use the ``celery.contrib.test_runner`` to test the
+``FeedImporter`` from the ``Writing Tasks`` example.
+
+To enable the testrunner, set the following settings:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    TEST_RUNNER = 'celery.contrib.test_runner.run_tests'
+
+
+Then we can write our actually test in a ``tests.py`` somewhere:
+
+.. code-block:: python
+
+    from django.test import TestCase
+    from feeds.tasks import FeedImporter
+
+    class FeedImporterTestCase(TestCase):
+
+        def testNoError(self):
+            """
+            Test that the ``FeedImporter`` task runs with no errors.
+            """
+            feed_url = 'http://github.com/feeds/ask/commits/celery/master'
+
+            feed_importer = FeedImporter()
+            task_result = feed_importer.delay(feed_url)
+
+            self.assertEqual(task_result.status, 'DONE')
+            self.assertEqual(task_result.result, feed_url)
+
+
+This test assumes that you put your example FeedImporter task in ``feeds.tasks``
+so of course adjust the import for wherever you actually put the class.