To test two lists

use: assertSequenceEqual

Because, in this case, tags = Tag.objects.all() generates a django.db.models.query.QuerySet where as tag_list.append(...) creates a list.

Other options in different situations are:

• assertListEqual(a, b)
• assertTupleEqual(a, b)
• assertSetEqual(a, b)
• assertDictEqual(a, b)

Why <Tag: a> is not <Tag: a>

The tags are the same model, but they've been loaded into different places in memory

for tag_set in zip(tags, tag_list):    print "\n"    print tag_set[0].slug + "'s pk is %s" % tag_set[0].pk + ' id is: ' + id(tag_set[0])    print tag_set[1].slug + "'s pk is %s" % tag_set[1].pk + ' id is: ' + id(tag_set[1])    print "\n"    self.assertIs(*tag_set)

returns

.......a's pk is 1 id is: 4522000208a's pk is 1 id is: 4522228112F.

Therefore, is will retrun False

I think what you want to test is if the tags created have the same slugs as those in your test list.

For that, fetch only the slug as a list with values_list, and then compare that:

assertEqual(Tag.objects.values_list('slug', flat=True), ['a','b','c'])

I have to say, this isn't quite a useful test because you are checking django orm functionality, which has already been tested quite well.

Your tests should check for specifics of your own application.