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Unit Testing Replace remote API Server with predefined response

So, I have a server running FastAPI which will make a API call to a remote API upon request.
I am developping unit-testing for this application, but here comes the question:
Can I, for the purpose of the test, replace a legit remote API server response by a predefined response ?
Example of the tests runned:
from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
from web_api import app
client = TestClient(app)
def test_get_root():
response = client.get('/')
assert response.status_code == 200
assert response.json() == {"running": True}
And the my server
from fastapi import FastAPI
app = FastAPI()
#app.get("/")
def home():
return {"running": True}
This is a simple example, but on other endpoints of my API I would call an external remote API
def call_api(self, endpoint:str, params:dict):
url = self.BASEURL + urllib.parse.quote(endpoint)
try:
response = requests.get(url, params=params)
response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as error:
print(error)
return response
Because I want to test the response of MY API, I would like to replace the remote API with a predefined response.
Also, one user request can end-up in multiple background API requests with transformed pieces of data.
Edit
Here are some more details on the structure of the application:
#app.get("/stuff/.......",
# lots of params
)
def get_stuff_from_things(stuff:list, params):
api = API(api_key=...)
# Do some stuff with the params
things = generate_things_list(params)
api.search_things(params)
# Check the result
# do some other stuff
return some_response
class API:
BASE_URL = 'https://api.example.com/'
def search_things(self, params):
# Do some stuff
# like putting stuff in the params
for s in stuff:
s.update(self.get_thing(params)) # -> get_thing()
# Do some more stuff
return stuff
# get_thing <- search_things
def get_thing(self, params...):
# Some stuff
results = self.call_api('something', params) # -> call_api()
json = results.json()
# Some more stuff
things = []
for thing in json['things']:
t = Thing(thing)
things.append(t)
return things
# call_api <- get_thing
def call_api(self, endpoint:str, params:dict):
url = self.BASEURL + urllib.parse.quote(endpoint)
try:
response = requests.get(url, params=params)
response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as error:
print(error)
self.last_response = response
return response
Nb. That is pseudo-code, I simplified the functions by removing the parameters, etc.
I hope it is clear, thanks for your help.

A complex API method might look like this (please pay attention to the depends mechanism - it is crucial):
import urllib
import requests
from fastapi import FastAPI, Depends
app = FastAPI()
# this can be in a different file
class RemoteCallWrapper:
def call_api(self, baseurl: str, endpoint: str, params: dict):
url = baseurl + urllib.parse.quote(endpoint)
try:
response = requests.get(url, params=params)
response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as error:
print(error)
return response
#app.get("/complex_api")
def calls_other_api(remote_call_wrapper=Depends(RemoteCallWrapper)):
response = remote_call_wrapper.call_api("https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com",
"/todos/1", None)
return {"result": response.json()}
Now, we wish to replace the remote call class. I wrote a helper library that simplifies the replacement for tests - pytest-fastapi-deps:
from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
from mock.mock import Mock
from requests import Response
from web_api import app, RemoteCallWrapper
client = TestClient(app)
class MyRemoteCallWrapper:
def call_api(self, baseurl: str, endpoint: str, params: dict):
the_response = Mock(spec=Response)
the_response.json.return_value = {"my": "response"}
return the_response
def test_get_root(fastapi_dep):
with fastapi_dep(app).override({RemoteCallWrapper: MyRemoteCallWrapper}):
response = client.get('/complex_api')
assert response.status_code == 200
assert response.json() == {"result": {"my": "response"}}
You override the RemoteCallWrapper with your MyRemoteCallWrapper implementation for the test, which has the same spec.
As asserted - the response changed to our predefined response.

It sounds like you'd want to mock your call_api() function.
With a small modification to call_api() (returning the result of .json()), you can easily mock the whole function while calling the endpoint in your tests.
I'll use two files, app.py and test_app.py, to demonstrate how I would do this:
# app.py
import requests
import urllib
from fastapi import FastAPI
app = FastAPI()
def call_api(self, endpoint: str, params: dict):
url = self.BASEURL + urllib.parse.quote(endpoint)
try:
response = requests.get(url, params=params)
response.raise_for_status()
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as error:
print(error)
return response.json() # <-- This is the only change. Makes it easier to test things.
#app.get("/")
def home():
return {"running": True}
#app.get("/call-api")
def make_call_to_external_api():
# `endpoint` and `params` could be anything here and could be different
# depending on the query parameters when calling this endpoint.
response = call_api(endpoint="something", params={})
# Do something with the response...
result = response["some_parameter"]
return result
# test_app.py
from unittest import mock
from fastapi import status
from fastapi.testclient import TestClient
import app as app_module
from app import app
def test_call_api_endpoint():
test_response = {
"some_parameter": "some_value",
"another_parameter": "another_value",
}
# The line below will "replace" the result of `call_api()` with whatever
# is given in `return_value`. The original function is never executed.
with mock.patch.object(app_module, "call_api", return_value=test_response) as mock_call:
with TestClient(app) as client:
res = client.get("/call-api")
assert res.status_code == status.HTTP_200_OK
assert res.json() == "some_value"
# Make sure the function has been called with the right parameters.
# This could be dynamic based on how the endpoint has been called.
mock_call.assert_called_once_with(endpoint="something", params={})
If app.py and test_app.py are in the same directory you can run the tests simply by running pytest inside that directory.

Why does my mocking of an URL with requests not work?

I tried to mock a specific URL as shown in this example:
How can I mock requests and the response?
to test my own function:
class URLStatus():
#staticmethod
def check(url, redirects):
try:
session = requests.Session()
session.max_redirects = redirects
urlcheck = session.get(url)
return urlcheck.status_code
The issue is that it never takes the mocked url, but instead only takes real ones.
import requests
from unittest import TestCase, mock
from unittest.mock import patch
from lib.checks.url_status import URLStatus
def mocked_requests_get(*args, **kwargs):
class MockResponse:
def __init__(self, json_data, status_code):
self.json_data = json_data
self.status_code = status_code
def json(self):
return self.json_data
if args[0] == 'http://someurl.com/test.json':
return MockResponse({"key1": "value1"}, 200)
elif args[0] == 'http://someotherurl.com/anothertest.json':
return MockResponse({"key2": "value2"}, 200)
return MockResponse(None, 404)
class URLStatusTestCase(TestCase):
#mock.patch('lib.checks.url_status.requests.get', side_effect=mocked_requests_get)
def test_check(self, mock_get):
url_status = URLStatus()
test_data = url_status.check('http://someurl.com/test.json', 5)
self.assertEqual(test_data, 200)
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()
This one, for example, fails because it sees 'http://someurl.com/test.json' as a 404, not a 200. I have no idea why this is happening.
How do I make it take the mocked URL?

You are mocking the wrong function. requests.get is a convenience function that creates its own, one-use Session, then uses its get method to provide the result. Your check method is using its own Session object; you need to at least mock that object's get method.
Given that you aren't reusing this session elsewhere, it would probably be simplest to change its implementation to take advantage of requests.get:
class URLStatus():
#staticmethod
def check(url, redirects):
return requests.get(url, max_redirects=redirects).status_code

Mock function used in flask request handler

I'm trying to mock the upload_image function called in a flask request handler from my test file.
However, with my current implementation, the original function is still called in the request handler and does not return the mocked return value. How can I mock this function from my test.py file?
The code:
tests/test.py
import os
from unittest.mock import patch
def test_image_upload(test_client):
with patch("app.utils.upload_image", 'test_path'):
test_file_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.abspath(__file__)) + '/test_file.png'
f = open(test_file_path, 'rb')
data = {
'num-files': 1,
'test_file.png': f
}
response = test_client.post('/file/upload', data=data)
assert response.status_code == 200
app/files/handler.py
from utils import upload_image
#app.route('/file/upload', methods=['POST'])
def upload_file():
# should be returning 'test_path', but is actually uploading the file and returning a URL
file_url = upload_image(image)
return jsonify({'file_url': file_url})

How to return 400 (Bad Request) on Flask?

I have created a simple flask app that and I'm reading the response from python as:
response = requests.post(url,data=json.dumps(data), headers=headers )
data = json.loads(response.text)
Now my issue is that under certain conditions I want to return a 400 or 500 message response. So far I'm doing it like this:
abort(400, 'Record not found')
#or
abort(500, 'Some error...')
This does print the message on the terminal:
But in the API response I kept getting a 500 error response:
The structure of the code is as follows:
|--my_app
|--server.py
|--main.py
|--swagger.yml
Where server.py has this code:
from flask import render_template
import connexion
# Create the application instance
app = connexion.App(__name__, specification_dir="./")
# read the swagger.yml file to configure the endpoints
app.add_api("swagger.yml")
# Create a URL route in our application for "/"
#app.route("/")
def home():
"""
This function just responds to the browser URL
localhost:5000/
:return: the rendered template "home.html"
"""
return render_template("home.html")
if __name__ == "__main__":
app.run(host="0.0.0.0", port="33")
And main.py has all the function I'm using for the API endpoints.
E.G:
def my_funct():
abort(400, 'Record not found')
When my_funct is called, I get the Record not found printed on the terminal, but not in the response from the API itself, where I always get the 500 message error.

You have a variety of options:
The most basic:
#app.route('/')
def index():
return "Record not found", 400
If you want to access the headers, you can grab the response object:
#app.route('/')
def index():
resp = make_response("Record not found", 400)
resp.headers['X-Something'] = 'A value'
return resp
Or you can make it more explicit, and not just return a number, but return a status code object
from flask_api import status
#app.route('/')
def index():
return "Record not found", status.HTTP_400_BAD_REQUEST
Further reading:
You can read more about the first two here: About Responses (Flask quickstart)
And the third here: Status codes (Flask API Guide)

I like to use the flask.Response class:
from flask import Response
#app.route("/")
def index():
return Response(
"The response body goes here",
status=400,
)
flask.abort is a wrapper around werkzeug.exceptions.abort which is really just a helper method to make it easier to raise HTTP exceptions. That's fine in most cases, but for restful APIs, I think it may be better to be explicit with return responses.

Here's some snippets from a Flask app I wrote years ago. It has an example of a 400 response
import werkzeug
from flask import Flask, Response, json
from flask_restplus import reqparse, Api, Resource, abort
from flask_restful import request
from flask_cors import CORS
app = Flask(__name__)
CORS(app)
api = Api(app)
parser = reqparse.RequestParser()
parser.add_argument('address_to_score', type=werkzeug.datastructures.FileStorage, location='files')
class MissingColumnException(Exception):
pass
class InvalidDateFormatException(Exception):
pass
#api.route('/project')
class Project(Resource):
#api.expect(parser)
#api.response(200, 'Success')
#api.response(400, 'Validation Error')
def post(self):
"""
Takes in an excel file of addresses and outputs a JSON with scores and rankings.
"""
try:
df, input_trees, needed_zones = data.parse_incoming_file(request)
except MissingColumnException as e:
abort(400, 'Excel File Missing Mandatory Column(s):', columns=str(e))
except Exception as e:
abort(400, str(e))
project_trees = data.load_needed_trees(needed_zones, settings['directories']['current_tree_folder'])
df = data.multiprocess_query(df, input_trees, project_trees)
df = data.score_locations(df)
df = data.rank_locations(df)
df = data.replace_null(df)
output_file = df.to_dict('index')
resp = Response(json.dumps(output_file), mimetype='application/json')
resp.status_code = 200
return resp
#api.route('/project/health')
class ProjectHealth(Resource):
#api.response(200, 'Success')
def get(self):
"""
Returns the status of the server if it's still running.
"""
resp = Response(json.dumps('OK'), mimetype='application/json')
resp.status_code = 200
return resp

You can return a tuple with the second element being the status (either 400 or 500).
from flask import Flask
app = Flask(__name__)
#app.route('/')
def hello():
return "Record not found", 400
if __name__ == '__main__':
app.run()
Example of calling the API from python:
import requests
response = requests.get('http://127.0.0.1:5000/')
response.text
# 'This is a bad request!'
response.status_code
# 400

I think you're using the abort() function correctly. I suspect the issue here is that an error handler is that is catching the 400 error and then erroring out which causes the 500 error. See here for more info on flask error handling.
As an example, the following would change a 400 into a 500 error:
#app.errorhandler(400)
def handle_400_error(e):
raise Exception("Unhandled Exception")
If you're not doing any error handling, it could be coming from the connexion framework, although I'm not familiar with this framework.

You can simply use #app.errorhandler decorator.
example:
#app.errorhandler(400)
def your_function():
return 'your custom text', 400

How to take in JSON as input to python tornado "post" method

I am trying to use tornado to do a simple get and post method. Quite new to tornado framework. For the post I would like to take in a json as input, use that input to feed into another function that I have to execute another part of code. However I can't get tornado post method to work even with a simple self.write().
For my get method I am reading from an SQL database to get the status of a sensor and write that in a json format. The get method works perfectly! When I go to localhost:port# it reads out my get json file. For my post method I would like to take in a simple json of just one key:value which is a float number. I want to take that float number that the user specified in the json and use it in my flowMKS.set() function that will change the setpoint parameter of the sensor. I am not sure how to input a json into the post method and read it into a variable. I have some #commented code below that I tried and didn't work. However I went back to the basics and just did a self.write("Hello World") to see if the post was working. I can't get self.write to work either. Keep getting a 500 error message when i go to localhost:port#/flow_post. The variable flow_status was used in my get method.
The intended result would be to take in a json {"setpoint":45.5} into the post method. Use the number and insert into my flowMKS method to change a parameter on the sensor.
How would you take in a json to a post method and take the number from the json input and store in a variable?
class Current(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
def get(self):
global flow_status
time = flow_status[0]
ip = flow_status[1]
rate = flow_status[2]
setp = flow_status[3]
tempc = flow_status[4]
status = {"flow_controller":{
"time":time,
"ip":ip,
"rate_sccm":rate,
"setpoint":setp,
"temperature_c":tempc,
}
}
self.write(status)
class Update(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
# def prepare(self):
# if self.request.haders["Content-Type"].startswith("application/json"):
# self.json_args = json.loads(self.request.body)
# else:
# self.json_args = None
def post(self):
# #expecting body data to contain JSON so we use json.loads to decrypt the JSON into a dict
# data = json.loads(self.request.body)
#
# #Getting what the setpoint should be
# setpoint = self.json_args["setpoint"]
#
# #making the input a float
# setpoint = float(setpoint)
#
# #setting up connection with sensor
# flowMKS = FlowController(flow_status[1])
#
# #sending setpoint to sensor
# flowMKS.set(setpoint)
self.write("Hello World")
if __name__ == '__main__':
# global flow_status
#Below is creating the Tornado based API for get and post methods
tornado.options.parse_command_line()
app = tornado.web.Application(
handlers=[(r'/',Current), (r'/flow_post', Update)])
http_server = tornado.httpserver.HTTPServer(app)
http_server.listen(options.port)
#using PeriodicCallback to get info from the SQL database every 500 ms
PeriodicCallback(get_sql_status,500).start()
#starting the entire Tornado IOLoop
tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.current().start()

For uploading a file using Tornado you can use this function tornado.httputil.parse_body_arguments which will split the uploaded file content in a dictionary file_dict and other arguments in the FormData in the args_dict.
Sample code:
import tornado.httputil
import tornado.web
import tornado.escape
import json
import os
import sys
import traceback
class FileHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
def _return_response(self, request, message_to_be_returned: dict, status_code):
"""
Returns formatted response back to client
"""
try:
request.set_header("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=UTF-8")
request.set_status(status_code)
#If dictionary is not empty then write the dictionary directly into
if(bool(message_to_be_returned)):
request.write(message_to_be_returned)
request.finish()
except Exception:
raise
def set_default_headers(self, *args, **kwargs):
self.set_header('Content-Type','text/csv')
self.set_header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*")
self.set_header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "x-requested-with")
self.set_header("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "*")
def post(self):
"""
This function reads an uploaded file
"""
try:
arg_dict = {}
file_dict = {}
tornado.httputil.parse_body_arguments(self.request.headers["Content-Type"], self.request.body, arg_dict, file_dict)
uploaded_file = file_dict['TestFile'][0]
if not uploaded_file:
return self._return_response(self, { 'message': 'No test file uploaded, please upload a test file' }, 400)
# File contents here
file_contents = str(uploaded_file['body'], "utf-8")
self.set_status(200)
self.finish()
except Exception as ex:
return self._return_response(self, { "message": 'Could not complete the request because of some error at the server!', "cause": ex.args[0], "stack_trace": traceback.format_exc(sys.exc_info()) }, 500)
You can alternatively use tornado.escape.json_decode to deserialize the request body into a dictionary and do something with it.
Sample code:
import tornado.gen
import tornado.web
import tornado.escape
import json
import os
import sys
import traceback
class JSONHandler(tornado.web.RequestHandler):
def _return_response(self, request, message_to_be_returned: dict, status_code):
"""
Returns formatted response back to client
"""
try:
request.set_header("Content-Type", "application/json; charset=UTF-8")
request.set_status(status_code)
#If dictionary is not empty then write the dictionary directly into
if(bool(message_to_be_returned)):
request.write(message_to_be_returned)
request.finish()
except Exception:
raise
def set_default_headers(self, *args, **kwargs):
self.set_header("Content-Type", "application/json")
self.set_header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", "*")
self.set_header("Access-Control-Allow-Headers", "x-requested-with")
self.set_header("Access-Control-Allow-Methods", "*")
def post(self):
"""
This function parses the request body and does something
"""
try:
# Do something with request body
request_payload = tornado.escape.json_decode(self.request.body)
return self._return_response(self, request_payload, 200)
except json.decoder.JSONDecodeError:
return self._return_response(self, { "message": 'Cannot decode request body!' }, 400)
except Exception as ex:
return self._return_response(self, { "message": 'Could not complete the request because of some error at the server!', "cause": ex.args[0], "stack_trace": traceback.format_exc(sys.exc_info()) }, 500)