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How to mock a function which makes a mutation on an argument that is necessary for the caller fuction logic

I want to be able to mock a function that mutates an argument, and that it's mutation is relevant in order for the code to continue executing correctly.
Consider the following code:
def mutate_my_dict(mutable_dict):
if os.path.exists("a.txt"):
mutable_dict["new_key"] = "new_value"
return True
def function_under_test():
my_dict = {"key": "value"}
if mutate_my_dict(my_dict):
return my_dict["new_key"]
return "No Key"
def test_function_under_test():
with patch("stack_over_flow.mutate_my_dict") as mutate_my_dict_mock:
mutate_my_dict_mock.return_value = True
result = function_under_test()
assert result == "new_value"
**Please understand i know i can just mock os.path.exists in this case but this is just an example. I intentionally want to mock the function and not the external module.
**
I also read the docs here:
https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.mock-examples.html#coping-with-mutable-arguments
But it doesn't seem to fit in my case.
This is the test i've written so far, but it obviously doesn't work since the key changes:
def test_function_under_test():
with patch("stack_over_flow.mutate_my_dict") as mutate_my_dict_mock:
mutate_my_dict_mock.return_value = True
result = function_under_test()
assert result == "new_value"
Thanks in advance for all of your time :)

With the help of Peter i managed to come up with this final test:
def mock_mutate_my_dict(my_dict):
my_dict["new_key"] = "new_value"
return True
def test_function_under_test():
with patch("stack_over_flow.mutate_my_dict") as mutate_my_dict_mock:
mutate_my_dict_mock.side_effect = mock_mutate_my_dict
result = function_under_test()
assert result == "new_value"
How it works is that with a side effect you can run a function instead of the intended function.
In this function you need to both change all of the mutating arguments and return the value returned.

How do I run two or more methods in a class like a chain?

I'm trying to learn OOP but I'm getting very confused with how I'm supposed to run the methods or return values. In the following code I want to run read_chapters() first, then sendData() with some string content that comes from read_chapters(). Some of the solutions I found did not use __init__ but I want to use it (just to see/learn how i can use them).
How do I run them? Without using __init__, why do you only return 'self'?
import datetime
class PrinceMail:
def __init__(self):
self.date2 = datetime.date(2020, 2, 6)
self.date1 = datetime.date.today()
self.days = (self.date1 - self.date2).days
self.file = 'The_Name.txt'
self.chapter = '' # Not sure if it would be better if i initialize chapter here-
# or if i can just use a normal variable later
def read_chapters(self):
with open(self.file, 'r') as book:
content = book.readlines()
indexes = [x for x in range(len(content)) if 'CHAPTER' in content[x]]
indexes = indexes[self.days:]
heading = content[indexes[0]]
try:
for i in (content[indexes[0]:indexes[1]]):
self.chapter += i # can i use normal var and return that instead?
print(self.chapter)
except IndexError:
for i in (content[indexes[0]:]):
self.chapter += i
print(self.chapter)
return self????? # what am i supposed to return? i want to return chapter
# The print works here but returns nothing.
# sendData has to run after readChapters automatically
def sendData(self):
pass
#i want to get the chapter into this and do something with it
def run(self):
self.read_chapters().sendData()
# I tried this method but it doesn't work for sendData
# Is there anyother way to run the two methods?
obj = PrinceMail()
print(obj.run())
#This is kinda confusing as well

Chaining methods is just a way to shorten this code:
temp = self.read_chapters()
temp.sendData()
So, whatever is returned by read_chapters has to have the method sendData. You should put whatever you want to return in read_chapters in a field of the object itself (aka self) in order to use it after chaining.

First of all, __init__ has nothing to do with what you want to achieve here. You can consider it as a constructor for other languages, this is the first function that is called when you create an object of the class.
Now to answer your question, if I am correct you just want to use the output of read_chapters in sendData. One of the way you can do that is by making the read_chapters a private method (that is if you don't want it to use through the object) using __ in the starting of the name like __read_chapters then make a call to the function inside the sendData function.
Another point to consider here is, when you are using self and don't intend to use the function through the object you don't need to return anything. self assigns the value to the attribute of the current instance. So, you can leave the function read_chapters at self.chapter = i and access the same in sendData.
Ex -
def sendData(self):
print(self.chapter)

I'm not an expert but, the reason to return self is because it is the instance of the class you're working with and that's what allows you to chain methods.
For what you're trying to do, method chaining doesn't seem to be the best approach. You want to sendData() for each iteration of the loop in read_chapters()? (you have self.chapter = i which is always overwritten)
Instead, you can store the chapters in a list and send it after all the processing.
Also, and I don't know if this is a good practice but, you can have a getter to return the data if you want to do something different with (return self.chapter instead of self)
I'd change your code for:
import datetime
class PrinceMail:
def __init__(self):
self.date2 = datetime.date(2020, 2, 6)
self.date1 = datetime.date.today()
self.days = (self.date1 - self.date2).days
self.file = 'The_Name.txt'
self.chapter = []
def read_chapters(self):
with open(self.file, 'r') as book:
content = book.readlines()
indexes = [x for x in range(len(content)) if 'CHAPTER' in content[x]]
indexes = indexes[self.days:]
heading = content[indexes[0]]
try:
for i in (content[indexes[0]:indexes[1]]):
self.chapter.append(i)
except IndexError:
#not shure what you want to do here
for i in (content[indexes[0]:]):
self.chapter.append(i)
return self
# sendData has to run after readChapters automatically
def sendData(self):
pass
#do what ever with self.chapter
def get_raw_chapters(self):
return self.chapter
Also, check PEP 8 Style Guide for naming conventions (https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#function-and-variable-names)
More reading in
Method chaining - why is it a good practice, or not?
What __init__ and self do on Python?

Overwrite custom class exceptions

So I have this thing I don’t know if I can do on python. I want to handle access to undefined variables. Example:
class example():
def __init__():
self.variableA = 'jaa'
def set_b(self):
self.variableB = 'nope'
Here if I instantiate a object X of example and try to access variableB without calling x.set_b() I will get an Class has no attribute error. Is there any way to dig into this exception? I would like to return and error with a custom message.

May I suggest to do the following:
class Example():
def __init__(self):
self.variableA = 'jaa'
self._variableB = None
#property
def variableB(self):
if self._variableB is None:
return 'Sorry, you need to set this using `Set_b` first'
# better would probably be
# raise AttributeError("'Sorry, you need to set this using `Set_b`")
return self._variableB
#variableB.setter
def variableB(self, value):
raise AttributeError("'Sorry, you need to set this using `Set_b`")
def set_b(self):
self._variableB = 'nope'
example = Example()
print(example.variableB) # Sorry, you need to set this using `Set_b` first
try:
example.variableB = 'mymy'
except Exception as error:
print(repr(error)) # AttributeError('Sorry, you need to set this using `Set_b`)
example.set_b()
print(example.variableB) # 'nope

Get object of calling method

I need to get the object method who called another function. I don't want its name, but the actual object.
So far, I got this.
import inspect
def info():
stack_call = inspect.stack()
cls_method = stack_call[1][3]
cls_obj = stack_call[1].frame.f_locals["self"]
cls_members = inspect.getmembers(cls_obj)
my_obj = None
for el in cls_members:
if el[0] == cls_method:
my_obj = el[1]
break
print(my_obj)
class Bob:
def __int__(self):
pass
def jim(self):
info()
test = Bob()
test.jim()
It does what I want to do, but I don't like having to go through the list to find the right method with its name.
I tried many things, but can't see how to make it better.
Would anybody have a better version?

A little different:
def info():
stack_call = inspect.stack()
cls_obj = stack_call[1].frame.f_locals[list(stack_call[1].frame.f_locals.keys())[0]]
cls_method = getattr(cls_obj, stack_call[1][3])
print(cls_method)

Inverse of hasattr in Python

hasattr(obj, attribute) is used to check if an object has the specified attribute but given an attribute is there a way to know where (all) it is defined?
Assume that my code is getting the name of an attribute (or a classmethod) as string and I want to invoke classname.attribute but I don't have the classname.
One solution that comes to my mind is this
def finder(attr):
for obj in globals():
try:
if globals()[obj].__dict__[attr]:
return(globals()[obj])
except:
...
usage:
class Lime(object):
#classmethod
def lfunc(self):
print('Classic')
getattr(finder('lfunc'),'lfunc')() #Runs lfunc method of Lime class
I am quite sure that this is not the best (oe even proper way) to do it. Can someone please provide a better way.

It is always "possible". Wether it is desirable is another history.
A quick and dirty way to do it is to iterate linearly over all classes and check if any define the attribute you have. Of course, that is subject to conflicts, and it will yield the first class that has such a named attribute. If it exists in more than one, it is up to you to decide which you want:
def finder(attr):
for cls in object.__subclasses__():
if hasattr(cls, attr):
return cls
raise ValueError
Instead of searching in "globals" this searches all subclasses of "object" - thus the classes to be found don't need to be in the namespace of the module where the finder function is.
If your methods are unique in teh set of classes you are searching, though, maybe you could just assemble a mapping of all methods and use it to call them instead.
Let's suppose all your classes inehrit from a class named "Base":
mapper = {attr_name:getattr(cls, attr_name) for cls in base.__subclasses__() for attr_name, obj in cls.__dict__.items()
if isinstance(obj, classmethod) }
And you call them with mapper['attrname']()
This avoids a linear search at each method call and thus would be much better.
- EDIT -
__subclassess__ just find the direct subclasses of a class, not the inheritance tree - so it won't be usefull in "real life" - maybe it is in the specifc case the OP has in its hands.
If one needs to find things across a inheritance tree, one needs to recurse over the each subclass as well.
As for old-style classes: of course this won't work - that is one of the motives for which they are broken by default in new code.
As for non-class attributes: they can only be found inspecting instances anyway - so another method has to be thought of - does not seem to be the concern of the O.P. here.

This might help:
import gc
def checker(checkee, maxdepth = 3):
def onlyDict(ls):
return filter(lambda x: isinstance(x, dict), ls)
collection = []
toBeInspected = {}
tBI = toBeInspected
gc.collect()
for dic in onlyDict(gc.get_referrers(checkee)):
for item, value in dic.iteritems():
if value is checkee:
collection.append(item)
elif item != "checker":
tBI[item] = value
def _auxChecker(checkee, path, collection, checked, current, depth):
if current in checked: return
checked.append(current)
gc.collect()
for dic in onlyDict(gc.get_referents(current)):
for item, value in dic.iteritems():
currentPath = path + "." + item
if value is checkee:
collection.append(currentPath)
else:
try:
_auxChecker(checkee, currentPath, collection,
checked, value, depth + 1)
if depth < maxdepth else None
except TypeError:
continue
checked = []
for item, value in tBI.iteritems():
_auxChecker(checkee, item, collection, checked, value, 1)
return collection
How to use:
referrer = []
class Foo:
pass
noo = Foo()
bar = noo
import xml
import libxml2
import sys
import os
op = os.path
xml.foo = bar
foobar = noo
for x in checker(foobar, 5):
try:
y= eval(x)
referrer.append(x)
except:
continue
del x, y
ps: attributes of the checkee will not be further checked, for recursive or nested references to the checkee itself.

This should work in all circumstances, but still needs a lot of testing:
import inspect
import sys
def finder(attr, classes=None):
result = []
if classes is None:
# get all accessible classes
classes = [obj for name, obj in inspect.getmembers(
sys.modules[__name__])]
for a_class in classes:
if inspect.isclass(a_class):
if hasattr(a_class, attr):
result.append(a_class)
else:
# we check for instance attributes
if hasattr(a_class(), attr):
result.append(a_class)
try:
result += finder(attr, a_class.__subclasses__())
except:
# old style classes (that don't inherit from object) do not
# have __subclasses; not the best solution though
pass
return list(set(result)) # workaround duplicates
def main(attr):
print finder(attr)
return 0
if __name__ == "__main__":
sys.exit(main("some_attr"))