Test you can get stuff from the db via the api.

django/website/rest_api/tests/item_view_tests.py

 from __future__ import unicode_literals, absolute_import
 
 from django.test import TestCase
-from rest_api.views import ItemList
-
 from rest_framework.test import APIRequestFactory
 
+from data_layer.tests.factories import ItemFactory
+
+from rest_api.views import ItemList
+
 
-class HandlerTests(TestCase):
+class ItemViewTests(TestCase):
 
-    factory = APIRequestFactory()
+    def get(self, view_class, url):
+        view = view_class.as_view()
+        request = APIRequestFactory().get(url)
+        return view(request)
 
     def test_get_items_returns_empty_if_no_items(self):
-        request = self.factory.get('/items/')
-        view = ItemList.as_view()
-        response = view(request)
+        response = self.get(ItemList, '/items/')
         self.assertEqual(response.data, [])
+
+    def test_get_items_returns_all_items(self):
+        item = ItemFactory()
+
+        payload = self.get(ItemList, '/items/').data
+
+        self.assertEqual(len(payload), 1)
+        self.assertEqual(payload[0]['body'], item.body)
+        # I don't much care for this test.
+        # It's testing too much of the stack, and its messy because the payload
+        # isn't the same kind data strcture even as ItemSerializer(item).data