How to use different database engines in Django for testing and production
One option would be to check sys.argv for the test argument in settings.py:
if 'test' in sys.argv: DATABASES['default']['ENGINE'] = 'django.db.backends.sqlite3' DATABASES['default']['NAME'] = 'databasename.db3'Though, as a side note: strictly speaking, it is not really a good idea to have different database backends for testing and for development/stage/production. You may encounter database-specific "special" cases, that can cost you a lot of time and headache.
You don't need to do any hacks. "--settings" - this is what you're looking for.
python manage.py test APP --settings settings.localpython manage.py test APP --settings settings.production
Whenever possible it's always a good idea to use the same setup in production and test. It makes for better testing. I great way to deal with tests running slowly is to use django-nose. It lets you reuse previously created test databases. This can super speed up test runs. Check out enabling database reuse in the docs. An example is as follows:
REUSE_DB=1 ./manage.py test