[TIP] How do I mock future instances of a class?

Michael Foord michael at voidspace.org.uk
Wed May 25 11:26:24 PDT 2011


On 25/05/2011 11:39, Yoni Tsafir wrote:
> Sorry for spamming with mock questions the last few days :)
> Just doing some massive testing for complicated code.
>
> I know that when I patch a specific method:
> @patch("package.MyClassName.my_method", new = Mock(return_value="xyz"))
>
> Even new instances of MyClass will return "xyz" as expected.
>
> However, when I try:
> @patch("package.MyClassName")
> def test_something(self, my_mock):
>     my_mock.my_method.return_value = "xyz"
>
> When in code I run:
> MyClassName().my_method()
>
> I get a new different Mock and not "xyz" as I would wish.

Right. When you mock MyClassName then the class is replaced with a mock. 
Instances are created by *calling the class*. This means you access the 
"mock instance" by looking at the return value of the mocked class. e.g.

@patch('package.MyClassName')
def test_something(self, my_mock):
     instance_mock = my_mock.return_value
     instance_mock.my_method.return_value = 'xyz'

mock autocreates a new mock to be the return value of any mock. So you 
control the behaviour of the instances of mocked classes by configuring 
my_mock.return_value.

All the best,

Michael Foord

>
> Now, it kinda makes sense to me, but I would like to know if there's a 
> way around it.
> Couldn't really achieve this by mocking __init__ (or maybe I did it 
> wrong?)
>
> Thanks!
> Yoni.
>
>
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