Develop Reference

python unittest mocking / patching

Not wanting to test manually my code, I'm trying to write a test which mocks/patches one of my dependencies (PyInquirer is a pretty neat package which handles the CLI for me - question dicts in, answer dicts out).
However, being very new to Python, I'm having difficulties with mocking that dependency. Here's the code I'm testing:
from PyInquirer import prompt
class Foo:
def bar(self):
# this line is asking the user for inpit, and that's what I want to mock.
a = prompt({'name': 'q',
'type': 'input',
'message': 'well, foo'})
print("f is", f)
return a
And this is the test:
import unittest
from unittest.mock import patch
from Foo import Foo
class TestFoo(unittest.TestCase):
#patch('PyInquirer.prompt', return_value=24)
def test_bar(self):
f = Foo()
a = f.bar()
assert a == 24
if __name__ == '__main__':
unittest.main()
(the real code is obviously more complicated, but this is the essence of the problem). Which manifests itself as:
Error
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.5_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/unittest/case.py", line 59, in testPartExecutor
yield
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.5_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/unittest/case.py", line 605, in run
testMethod()
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.5_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/lib/python3.6/unittest/mock.py", line 1179, in patched
return func(*args, **keywargs)
TypeError: test_bar() takes 1 positional argument but 2 were given
I'm quite confused.
If I omit the patch decorator, the invocation fails with an expected assertion error - the dictionary produced by prompt isn't equal to 24. But if I do provide the decorator, I get the argument mismatch above. And indeed the last line in the stacktrace does show the function "func", which I presume is what the decorator was applied to, is invoked with two arguments... but... why? Can't be the essence of a problem? That only functions with arity of two can be thus patched =)

Your class uses the name Foo.prompt (because of how you import it), so that's what you need to patch.
class TestFoo(unittest.TestCase):
#patch('Foo.prompt', return_value=24)
def test_bar(self, mock_prompt):
f = Foo()
a = f.bar()
assert a == 24
You also need to add a parameter to test_bar to receive the patched object, whether or not you plan to use it. If you don't want to do that,
you can move the call to patch inside the method, using it with a with statement.
class TestFoo(unittest.TestCase):
def test_bar(self):
with patch('Foo.prompt', return_value=24):
f = Foo()
a = f.bar()
assert a == 24

Mocking 3rd party function in another module with python, pytest, mock

I have a function func1() that is in production and cannot be modified. It calls a function ,function_to_be_mocked(), in another module. This takes input parameters.
I have another function func2() which calls func1().
I am writing unit tests to test func2(), and trying to mock function_to_be_mocked (as it depends on some keys I don't have (and should't have) on my local system). The only thing I can modify is test_func2().
I have a set up like the following (minimum example):
from othermodule import function_to_be_mocked
import pytest
import mock
def func1():
function_to_be_mocked(None)
def func2():
ret = func1()
print (ret)
#mock.patch('othermodule.function_to_be_mocked', return_value = 3)
def test_func2(mocker):
func2()
And othermodule.py is:
def function_to_be_mocked(arg1):
if not arg1 == 'foo':
raise ValueError
My output:
Calling func2 directly:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
File "/Users/blah/temp.py", line 9, in func2
ret = func1()
File "/Users/blah/temp.py", line 6, in func1
function_to_be_mocked(None)
File "/Users/blah/othermodule.py", line 3, in function_to_be_mocked
raise ValueError
ValueError
Calling test_func2() which I would expect to be mocked:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<console>", line 1, in <module>
File "/Users/blah/venv/lib/python2.7/site-packages/mock/mock.py", line 1305, in patched
return func(*args, **keywargs)
File "/Users/blah/temp.py", line 14, in test_func2
func2()
File "/Users/blah/temp.py", line 9, in func2
ret = func1()
File "/Users/blah/temp.py", line 6, in func1
function_to_be_mocked(None)
File "/Users/blah/othermodule.py", line 3, in function_to_be_mocked
raise ValueError
ValueError
So the mock doesn't seem to be working. Does anyone have any thoughts how to achieve this?
============ Edited below this line ===========
It doesn't sound like I can do what I thought I could (as I cannot modify anything related to function 1, or 2 in fact. All I have control over is the test.
Let me pose the following problem then as perhaps more experienced eyes than mine can see a way forward.
I have a function:
def function_to_be_tested(args):
# Some processing steps
# Function call that works locally
function_that_returns_something_1()
# Some logic
# Function call that works locally
function_that_returns_something_2()
# Function that raises an exception when running locally,
# and since I need to test the logic after this function
# (and cannot edit this code here to bypass it) I would
# (naively) like to mock it.
function_I_would_like_to_mock()
# Much more logic that follows this function.
# And this logic needs to be unit tested.
return some_value_based_on_the_logic
Tests:
def test_function_to_be_tested():
assert function_to_be_tested(args) == some_expected_value
I can easily unit test anything before function_I_would_like_to_mock().
But since this function crashes locally (and I cannot edit the code to stop it crashing locally), I feel like the correct approach would be to mock it and force a sensible return value. So that I can unit tests the code paths beyond this.
What would you suggest as a good approach?
Please note, the only thing I can modify is the test function. I can't add even decorators to the main functions.

Option A)
The function you are willing to mock is loaded into func1. Therefore you have to apply the #patch decorator to func1
import pytest
from unittest import mock
#mock.patch('othermodule.function_to_be_mocked', return_value = 3)
def func1(mocker):
from othermodule import function_to_be_mocked
function_to_be_mocked(None)
def func2():
ret = func1()
print (ret)
def test_func2():
func2()
test_func2()
=========Edit===========
Option B)
import pytest
from unittest import mock
def func1():
from othermodule import function_to_be_mocked
function_to_be_mocked(None)
def func2():
ret = func1()
print (ret)
def test_func2():
with mock.patch('othermodule.function_to_be_mocked', return_value = 3) as irrelevant:
func2()
test_func2()

The Where to patch section of the official "unittest.mock — mock object library" documentation explains this quite clearly:
a.py
-> Defines SomeClass
b.py
-> from a import SomeClass
-> some_function instantiates SomeClass
Now we want to test some_function but we want to mock out SomeClass using patch(). The problem is that when we import module b, which we will have to do then it imports SomeClass from module a. If we use patch() to mock out a.SomeClass then it will have no effect on our test; module b already has a reference to the real SomeClass and it looks like our patching had no effect.
The key is to patch out SomeClass where it is used (or where it is looked up ). In this case some_function will actually look up SomeClass in module b, where we have imported it. The patching should look like:
#patch('b.SomeClass')
So I think in your case the patching should look like:
#patch("module_of_func2.function_to_be_mocked_as_it_is_imported_there", return_value=3)
def test_func2():
...

If suppose you want to mock a function from module inside function in another module in python you can try this.
# application2.py
def app2_func(a):
print(a)
# application1.py
import application2
def app1_func(a):
application2.app2_func(a) # func to be mocked
the test file to test the function
# application_test.py
import application1
def test_app1_func(mocker):
app2_mocker = mocker.patch('application1.application2.app2_func')
application1.app1_func('mock call')
app2_mocker.assert_called_once() # to check if mocked function is called once

multiprocessing and modules

I am attempting to use multiprocessing to call derived class member function defined in a different module. There seem to be several questions dealing with calling class methods from the same module, but none from different modules. For example, if I have the following structure:
main.py
multi/
__init__.py (empty)
base.py
derived.py
main.py
from multi.derived import derived
from multi.base import base
if __name__ == '__main__':
base().multiFunction()
derived().multiFunction()
base.py
import multiprocessing;
# The following two functions wrap calling a class method
def wrapPoolMapArgs(classInstance, functionName, argumentLists):
className = classInstance.__class__.__name__
return zip([className] * len(argumentLists), [functionName] * len(argumentLists), [classInstance] * len(argumentLists), argumentLists)
def executeWrappedPoolMap(args, **kwargs):
classType = eval(args[0])
funcType = getattr(classType, args[1])
funcType(args[2], args[3:], **kwargs)
class base:
def multiFunction(self):
mppool = multiprocessing.Pool()
mppool.map(executeWrappedPoolMap, wrapPoolMapArgs(self, 'method', range(3)))
def method(self,args):
print "base.method: " + args.__str__()
derived.py
from base import base
class derived(base):
def method(self,args):
print "derived.method: " + args.__str__()
Output
base.method: (0,)
base.method: (1,)
base.method: (2,)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "e:\temp\main.py", line 6, in <module>
derived().multiFunction()
File "e:\temp\multi\base.py", line 15, in multiFunction
mppool.map(executeWrappedPoolMap, wrapPoolMapArgs(self, 'method', range(3)))
File "C:\Program Files\Python27\lib\multiprocessing\pool.py", line 251, in map
return self.map_async(func, iterable, chunksize).get()
File "C:\Program Files\Python27\lib\multiprocessing\pool.py", line 567, in get
raise self._value
NameError: name 'derived' is not defined
I have tried fully qualifying the class name in the wrapPoolMethodArgs method, but that just gives the same error, saying multi is not defined.
Is there someway to achieve this, or must I restructure to have all classes in the same package if I want to use multiprocessing with inheritance?

This is almost certainly caused by the ridiculous eval based approach to dynamically invoking specific code.
In executeWrappedPoolMap (in base.py), you convert a str name of a class to the class itself with classType = eval(args[0]). But eval is executed in the scope of executeWrappedPoolMap, which is in base.py, and can't find derived (because the name doesn't exist in base.py).
Stop passing the name, and pass the class object itself, passing classInstance.__class__ instead of classInstance.__class__.__name__; multiprocessing will pickle it for you, and you can use it directly on the other end, instead of using eval (which is nearly always wrong; it's code smell of the strongest sort).
BTW, the reason the traceback isn't super helpful is that the exception is raised in the worker, caught, pickle-ed, and sent back to the main process and re-raise-ed. The traceback you see is from that re-raise, not where the NameError actually occurred (which was in the eval line).

Mocking an entire class

Long story short, I'm perfectly able to mock class method, when it's just that method that's replaced by mock object, but I'm unable to mock that method when I'm trying to replace the whole class by the mock object
The #mock.patch.object successfully mocks the scan method but #mock.patch fails to do so. I've followed the example at
https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.mock.html#unittest.mock.patch
but apparently I'm doing something wrong.
I'm mocking the lexicon module in the same namespace in both cases (it's imported by import lexicon in the sentence_parser) but the mock_lexicon is lexicon.lexicon check fails
#!python
import sys;
sys.path.append('D:\python\lexicon');
import lexicon;
import sentence_parser;
import unittest2 as unittest;
import mock;
class ParserTestCases(unittest.TestCase) :
def setUp(self) :
self.Parser = sentence_parser.Parser();
#mock.patch('lexicon.lexicon')
def test_categorizedWordsAreAssigned_v1(self, mock_lexicon) :
print "mock is lexicon:";
print mock_lexicon is lexicon.lexicon + "\n";
instance = mock_lexicon.return_value;
instance.scan.return_value = "anything";
self.Parser.categorize_words_in_sentence("sentence");
instance.scan.assert_called_once_with("sentence");
#mock.patch.object(lexicon.lexicon, 'scan')
def test_categorizedWordsAreAssigned_v2(self, mock_scan) :
mock_scan.return_value = "anything";
self.Parser.categorize_words_in_sentence("sentence");
mock_scan.assert_called_once_with("sentence");
if (__name__ == '__main__') :
unittest.main()
Output :
mock is lexicon:
False
======================================================================
FAIL: test_categorizedWordsAreAssigned_v1 (__main__.ParserTestCases)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "D:\python\get_img\getImage_env\lib\site-packages\mock\mock.py", line 1305, in patched
return func(*args, **keywargs)
File "./test_sentence_parser.py", line 26, in test_categorizedWordsAreAssigned_v1
instance.scan.assert_called_once_with("sentence");
File "D:\python\get_img\getImage_env\lib\site-packages\mock\mock.py", line 947, in assert_called_once_with
raise AssertionError(msg)
AssertionError: Expected 'scan' to be called once. Called 0 times.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 2 tests in 0.009s
FAILED (failures=1)
EDIT :
To clarify, the Parser is defined as follows
#!python
import sys;
sys.path.append('D:\python\lexicon');
import lexicon;
class Parser(object) :
my_lexicon = lexicon.lexicon()
def __init__(self) :
self.categorized_words = ['test'];
def categorize_words_in_sentence(self, sentence) :
self.categorized_words = self.my_lexicon.scan(sentence);
if (__name__ == '__main__') :
instance = Parser();
instance.categorize_words_in_sentence("bear");
print instance.categorized_words;

What is real relevant here is how categorize_words_in_sentence Parser's method use lexicon. But first of all we should remove the noise:
print mock_lexicon is lexicon.lexicon + "\n"
Is what can lead us to the wrong direction: try to replace it by
self.assertIs(mock_lexicon, lexicon.lexicon)
and you will understand that you are printing False because mock_lexicon is not lexicon.lexicon + "\n" but just lexicon.lexicon.
Now I cannot tell you why the first test doesn't work because the answer is in categorize_words_in_sentence method or more probably in sentence_parser module where I can guess you can have something like
from lexicon import lexicon
In both case take a look to Where to Patch documentation that can enlighten you on what can be the cause and what you really need to patch in your case.
The second version works just because you are patching the object and not the reference (that should be different).
Finally the more concise and general version can be:
#mock.patch('lexicon.lexicon.scan', return_value="anything")
def test_categorizedWordsAreAssigned_v3(self, mock_scan) :
self.Parser.categorize_words_in_sentence("sentence")
mock_scan.assert_called_once_with("sentence")
One more thing: remove unittest2 at least you're not using python 2.4 and you are interested on backported unittest features.
[EDIT]
Now I can stop to guess and point to you why the first version doesn't work and will never work:
class Parser(object) :
my_lexicon = lexicon.lexicon()
Parser.my_lexicon attribute is evaluated at the load time. That means when you import sentence_parser a lexicon is created and the reference associated to Parser.my_lexicon. When you patch lexicon.lexicon you leave this reference untouched and your parser object still use the original reference created when is imported.
What you can do is to patch the reference in Parser class by
#patch("sentence_parser.Parser.my_lexicon")
You can use create_autospect if you want give to your mock the same lexicon's signature.
#patch("sentence_parser.Parser.my_lexicon", create_autospec("lexicon.lexicon", instance=True))

Python – How to mock a single function

From the Mock docs, I wasn't able to understand how to implement the following type of pattern successfully. fetch_url does not exist inside of a class.
My function in the auth.py file:
def fetch_url(url, method=urlfetch.GET, data=''):
"""Send a HTTP request"""
result = urlfetch.fetch(url=url, method=method, payload=data,
headers={'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*'})
return result.content
My test:
import unittest
from mock import Mock
class TestUrlFetch(unittest.TestCase):
def test_fetch_url(self):
from console.auth import fetch_url
# Create a mock object based on the fetch_url function
mock = Mock(spec=fetch_url)
# Mock the fetch_url function
content = mock.fetch_url('https://google.com')
# Test that content is not empty
self.assertIsNotNone(content)
If what I'm doing is completely in the wrong direction, please shed some light on the correct solution.
The test is not working, and is producing the following error:
======================================================================
ERROR: test_fetch_url (console.tests.test_auth.TestUrlFetch)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/Users/bengrunfeld/Desktop/Work/code/wf-ghconsole/console/tests/test_auth.py", line 34, in test_fetch_url
content = mock.fetch_url('https://google.com')
File "/Users/bengrunfeld/.virtualenvs/env2/lib/python2.7/site-packages/mock.py", line 658, in __getattr__
raise AttributeError("Mock object has no attribute %r" % name)
AttributeError: Mock object has no attribute 'fetch_url'
-------------------- >> begin captured logging << --------------------
root: DEBUG: Using threading.local
--------------------- >> end captured logging << ---------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 1 test in 0.277s
FAILED (errors=1)

First of all, as univerio's comment suggests you should call you mock like this:
mock('https://google.com')
Your test should pass after that fix, but probably that mock doesn't do what you really want. I've encountered a few problems with spec and autospec.
Mocks created with Mock(spec=) don't check number of arguments they are called with. I've just looked through the docs and they don't state that, but for some reason I expected it to work. Autospecced mocks do check the arguments.
By default both spec and autospec function mocks return mock objects when you call them. This may be not what you want when you mock a function that does not return anything. In this case you can set the return_value manually:
def foo():
pass
mock_foo = Mock(spec=foo, return_value=None)
mock_foo()