unit testing - Using python's mock patch.object to change the return value of a method called within another method

Question

Is it possible to mock a return value of a function called within another function I am trying to test? I would like the mocked method (which will be called in many methods I'm testing) to returned my specified variables each time it is called. For example:

class Foo:
    def method_1():
       results = uses_some_other_method()
    def method_n():
       results = uses_some_other_method()

In the unit test, I would like to use mock to change the return value of uses_some_other_method() so that any time it is called in Foo, it will return what I defined in @patch.object(...)

Answer 1

There are two ways you can do this; with patch and with patch.object

Patch assumes that you are not directly importing the object but that it is being used by the object you are testing as in the following

#foo.py
def some_fn():
    return 'some_fn'

class Foo(object):
    def method_1(self):
        return some_fn()

#bar.py
import foo
class Bar(object):
    def method_2(self):
        tmp = foo.Foo()
        return tmp.method_1()

#test_case_1.py
import bar
from mock import patch

@patch('foo.some_fn')
def test_bar(mock_some_fn):
    mock_some_fn.return_value = 'test-val-1'
    tmp = bar.Bar()
    assert tmp.method_2() == 'test-val-1'
    mock_some_fn.return_value = 'test-val-2'
    assert tmp.method_2() == 'test-val-2'

If you are directly importing the module to be tested, you can use patch.object as follows:

#test_case_2.py
import foo
from mock import patch

@patch.object(foo, 'some_fn')
def test_foo(test_some_fn):
    test_some_fn.return_value = 'test-val-1'
    tmp = foo.Foo()
    assert tmp.method_1() == 'test-val-1'
    test_some_fn.return_value = 'test-val-2'
    assert tmp.method_1() == 'test-val-2'

In both cases some_fn will be 'un-mocked' after the test function is complete.

Edit: In order to mock multiple functions, just add more decorators to the function and add arguments to take in the extra parameters

@patch.object(foo, 'some_fn')
@patch.object(foo, 'other_fn')
def test_foo(test_other_fn, test_some_fn):
    ...

Note that the closer the decorator is to the function definition, the earlier it is in the parameter list.

Answer 2

This can be done with something like this:

# foo.py
class Foo:
    def method_1():
        results = uses_some_other_method()


# testing.py
from mock import patch

@patch('Foo.uses_some_other_method', return_value="specific_value"):
def test_some_other_method(mock_some_other_method):
    foo = Foo()
    the_value = foo.method_1()
    assert the_value == "specific_value"

Here's a source that you can read: Patching in the wrong place

Answer 3

Let me clarify what you're talking about: you want to test Foo in a testcase, which calls external method uses_some_other_method. Instead of calling the actual method, you want to mock the return value.

class Foo:
    def method_1():
       results = uses_some_other_method()
    def method_n():
       results = uses_some_other_method()

Suppose the above code is in foo.py and uses_some_other_method is defined in module bar.py. Here is the unittest:

import unittest
import mock

from foo import Foo


class TestFoo(unittest.TestCase):

    def setup(self):
        self.foo = Foo()

    @mock.patch('foo.uses_some_other_method')
    def test_method_1(self, mock_method):
        mock_method.return_value = 3
        self.foo.method_1(*args, **kwargs)

        mock_method.assert_called_with(*args, **kwargs)

If you want to change the return value every time you passed in different arguments, mock provides side_effect.

Answer 4

To add to Silfheed's answer, which was useful, I needed to patch multiple methods of the object in question. I found it more elegant to do it this way:

Given the following function to test, located in module.a_function.to_test.py:

from some_other.module import SomeOtherClass

def add_results():
    my_object = SomeOtherClass('some_contextual_parameters')
    result_a = my_object.method_a()
    result_b = my_object.method_b()
    
    return result_a + result_b

To test this function (or class method, it doesn't matter), one can patch multiple methods of the class SomeOtherClass by using patch.object() in combination with sys.modules:

@patch.object(sys.modules['module.a_function.to_test'], 'SomeOtherClass')
def test__should_add_results(self, mocked_other_class):
  mocked_other_class().method_a.return_value = 4
  mocked_other_class().method_b.return_value = 7

  self.assertEqual(add_results(), 11)

This works no matter the number of methods of SomeOtherClass you need to patch, with independent results.

Also, using the same patching method, an actual instance of SomeOtherClass can be returned if need be:

@patch.object(sys.modules['module.a_function.to_test'], 'SomeOtherClass')
def test__should_add_results(self, mocked_other_class):
  other_class_instance = SomeOtherClass('some_controlled_parameters')
  mocked_other_class.return_value = other_class_instance 
  ...