AttributeError when using APITestCase.client.patch with 'follow=True' on redirects with 307 and 308

[realsuayip]

Discussed in #8357

^{Originally posted by realsuayip February 8, 2022}
Case:

class TestStuff(APITestCase):
    def test_stuff(self):
        user = UserFactory(username="janet", display_name="Janet Doe")
        self.client.force_login(user)
        self.client.patch("/api/users/me/", follow=True)

Error raised:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/code/app/auth/tests.py", line 77, in test_stuff
    self.client.patch("/api/users/me/", follow=True)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/rest_framework/test.py", line 315, in patch
    response = self._handle_redirects(response, **extra)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/django/test/client.py", line 858, in _handle_redirects
    response = request_method(path, data=data, content_type=content_type, follow=False, **extra)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/rest_framework/test.py", line 312, in patch
    response = super().patch(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/rest_framework/test.py", line 217, in patch
    data, content_type = self._encode_data(data, format, content_type)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/rest_framework/test.py", line 180, in _encode_data
    ret = renderer.render(data)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/rest_framework/renderers.py", line 914, in render
    return encode_multipart(self.BOUNDARY, data)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/django/test/client.py", line 245, in encode_multipart
    for (key, value) in data.items():
AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'items'

Am I missing something? Presence of 'data' won't do anything.

When a view returns HttpResponseRedirect with 307 or 308, follow=True will fail (at least in patch method, haven't tried others). Steps to reproduce:

1. Clone: https://github.com/realsuayip/zeynep/tree/problematic-test
2. Run: python3 docker.py up
3. Run tests while the container is running: python3 docker.py test

[hashlash]

I confirm this issue as well, and the issue also exists on other methods as well. I believe it's due to django/django@272f685. I'll try to add a patch to fix it.

[hashlash]

You can try my patch here: https://github.com/hashlash/django-rest-framework/tree/8406

[lovelydinosaur]

Thanks folks.