Mocking out objects and methods¶
Mocking is the process of replacing chunks of complex functionality that aren’t the subject of the test with mock objects that allow you to check that the mocked out functionality is being used as expected.
In this way, you can break down testing of a complicated set of interacting components into testing of each individual component. The behaviour of components can then be tested individually, irrespective of the behaviour of the components around it.
There are a few implementations of mock objects in the python world. An excellent example and the one recommended for use with TestFixtures is the Mock package: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mock/
Methods of replacement¶
TestFixtures provides three different methods of mocking out functionality that can be used to replace functions, classes or even individual methods on a class. Consider the following module:
testfixtures.tests.sample1
class X:
We want to mock out the y
method of the X
class, with,
for example, the following function:
def mock_y(self):
return 'mock y'
The context manager¶
For replacement of a single thing, it’s easiest to use the
Replace
context manager:
from testfixtures import Replace
def test_function():
with Replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', mock_y):
print(X().y())
For the duration of the with
block, the replacement is used:
>>> test_function()
mock y
For multiple replacements to do, or where the you need access to the replacement
within the code block under test, the Replacer
context
manager can be used instead:
from mock import Mock
from testfixtures import Replacer
def test_function():
with Replacer() as replace:
mock_y = replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', Mock())
mock_y.return_value = 'mock y'
print(X().y())
For the duration of the with
block, the replacement is used:
>>> test_function()
mock y
The decorator¶
If you are working in a traditional unittest
environment and
want to replace different things in different test functions, you may
find the decorator suits your needs better:
from testfixtures import replace
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', mock_y)
def test_function():
print(X().y())
When using the decorator, the replacement is used for the duration of the decorated callable’s execution:
>>> test_function()
mock y
If you need to manipulate or inspect the object that’s used as a replacement, you can add an extra parameter to your function. The decorator will see this and pass the replacement in it’s place:
from mock import Mock, call
from testfixtures import compare,replace
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', Mock())
def test_function(mock_y):
mock_y.return_value = 'mock y'
print(X().y())
compare(mock_y.mock_calls, expected=[call()])
The above still results in the same output:
>>> test_function()
mock y
Manual usage¶
If you want to replace something for the duration of a doctest or you
want to replace something for every test in a
TestCase
, then you can use the
Replacer
manually.
The instantiation and replacement are done in the setUp
function
of the TestCase
or passed to the
DocTestSuite
constructor:
>>> from testfixtures import Replacer
>>> replace = Replacer()
>>> replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', mock_y)
<...>
The replacement then stays in place until removed:
>>> X().y()
'mock y'
Then, in the tearDown
function
of the TestCase
or passed to the
DocTestSuite
constructor, the replacement is
removed:
>>> replace.restore()
>>> X().y()
'original y'
The restore()
method can also be added as an
addCleanup()
if that is easier or more compact in your test
suite.
Replacing more than one thing¶
Both the Replacer
and the
replace()
decorator can be used to replace more
than one thing at a time. For the former, this is fairly obvious:
def test_function():
with Replacer() as replace:
y = replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', Mock())
y.return_value = 'mock y'
aMethod = replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.aMethod', Mock())
aMethod.return_value = 'mock method'
x = X()
print(x.y(), x.aMethod())
For the decorator, it’s less obvious but still pretty easy:
from testfixtures import replace
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.y', Mock())
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.X.aMethod', Mock())
def test_function(aMethod, y):
print(aMethod, y)
aMethod().return_value = 'mock method'
y().return_value = 'mock y'
x = X()
print(aMethod, y)
print(x.y(), x.aMethod())
You’ll notice that you can still get access to the replacements, even though there are several of them.
Replacing things that may not be there¶
The following code shows a situation where hpy
may or may not be
present depending on whether the guppy
package is installed or
not.
testfixtures.tests.sample2
try:
from guppy import hpy
guppy = True
except ImportError:
guppy = False
def dump(path):
if guppy:
hpy().heap().stat.dump(path)
To test the behaviour of the code that uses hpy
in both of
these cases, regardless of whether or not the guppy
package is
actually installed, we need to be able to mock out both hpy
and the
guppy
global. This is done by doing non-strict replacement, as
shown in the following TestCase
:
from testfixtures.tests.sample2 import dump
from testfixtures import replace
from mock import Mock, call
class Tests(unittest.TestCase):
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample2.guppy', True)
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample2.hpy', Mock(), strict=False)
def test_method(self, hpy):
dump('somepath')
compare([
call(),
call().heap(),
call().heap().stat.dump('somepath')
], hpy.mock_calls)
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample2.guppy', False)
@replace('testfixtures.tests.sample2.hpy', Mock(), strict=False)
def test_method_no_heapy(self,hpy):
dump('somepath')
compare(hpy.mock_calls,[])
The replace()
method and calling
a Replacer
also supports non-strict replacement using the same
keyword parameter.
Replacing items in dictionaries and lists¶
Replace
, Replacer
and the
replace()
decorator can be used to replace items
in dictionaries and lists.
For example, suppose you have a data structure like the following:
testfixtures.tests.sample1
def __init__(self, *args):
self.args = args
You can mock out the value associated with key
and the second
element in the complex_key
list as follows:
from pprint import pprint
from testfixtures import Replacer
from testfixtures.tests.sample1 import someDict
def test_function():
with Replacer() as replace:
replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.someDict.key', 'foo')
replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.someDict.complex_key.1', 42)
pprint(someDict)
While the replacement is in effect, the new items are in place:
>>> test_function()
{'complex_key': [1, 42, 3], 'key': 'foo'}
When it is no longer in effect, the originals are returned:
>>> pprint(someDict)
{'complex_key': [1, 2, 3], 'key': 'value'}
Removing attributes and dictionary items¶
Replace
, Replacer
and the
replace()
decorator can be used to remove
attributes from objects and remove items from dictionaries.
For example, suppose you have a data structure like the following:
testfixtures.tests.sample1
def __init__(self, *args):
self.args = args
If you want to remove the key
for the duration of a test, you can
do so as follows:
from testfixtures import Replacer, not_there
from testfixtures.tests.sample1 import someDict
def test_function():
with Replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.someDict.key', not_there):
pprint(someDict)
While the replacement is in effect, key
is gone:
>>> test_function()
{'complex_key': [1, 2, 3]}
When it is no longer in effect, key
is returned:
>>> pprint(someDict)
{'complex_key': [1, 2, 3], 'key': 'value'}
If you want the whole someDict
dictionary to be removed for the
duration of a test, you would do so as follows:
from testfixtures import Replacer, not_there
from testfixtures.tests import sample1
def test_function():
with Replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.someDict', not_there):
print(hasattr(sample1, 'someDict'))
While the replacement is in effect, key
is gone:
>>> test_function()
False
When it is no longer in effect, key
is returned:
>>> pprint(sample1.someDict)
{'complex_key': [1, 2, 3], 'key': 'value'}
Gotchas¶
Make sure you replace the object where it’s used and not where it’s defined. For example, with the following code from the
testfixtures.tests.sample1
package:def str_today_2(): return str(today())
You might be tempted to mock things as follows:
>>> replace = Replacer() >>> replace('time.time', Mock()) <...>
But this won’t work:
>>> from testfixtures.tests.sample1 import str_time >>> type(float(str_time())) <... 'float'>
You need to replace
time()
where it’s used, not where it’s defined:>>> replace('testfixtures.tests.sample1.time', Mock()) <...> >>> str_time() "<...Mock...>"
A corollary of this is that you need to replace all occurrences of an original to safely be able to test. This can be tricky when an original is imported into many modules that may be used by a particular test.
You can’t replace whole top level modules, and nor should you want to! The reason being that everything up to the last dot in the replacement target specifies where the replacement will take place, and the part after the last dot is used as the name of the thing to be replaced:
>>> Replacer().replace('sys', Mock()) Traceback (most recent call last): ... ValueError: target must contain at least one dot!