[TIP] Dilemma with using mock objects
Tu Ted
999iscool at gmail.com
Mon Apr 23 15:24:49 PDT 2012
Please bear with me. Suppose I want to assert that result is in a
particular format, I might set the return value to something as (True,
'Success')
Sample code: http://pastebin.com/VraxaKjL
def batch_move(self, *args, **kwargs):
'''
Move a batch of files to its respective destinations.
Return type: tuple (boolean, message)
T/F , 'string' / str(exception)
'''
srcs= kwargs.get('srcs', None)
dests = kwargs.get('dests', None)
try:
if srcs and dests:
# map srcs and dests into dictionary (srcs --> keys, dests -->
values)
src_dest= dict(zip(srcs, dests))
for src, dest in src_dest:
if os.path.exists(src):
if os.path.exists(dest):
shutil.rmtree(dest)
shutil.move(src, dest) # either way we will proceed to move
else:
return (False, '%s does not exist!' % src)
return (True, 'Success!')
else:
return (False, 'Something gone wrong with those kwargs...')
except Exception as e:
return (False, e)
In order to get to return (True, 'Success!'), I have
1. patch os.path.exists with True as return value. But in one unittest I
want to skip this, how do I patch that os.path.exists?
if os.path.exists(dest): # I want to skip this
shutil.rmtree(dest)
2. How do I patch shutil.move(src, dest)? Do I just give True so it doesn't
generate error? What if I want the case it fails and caught an exception?
How do I simulate that? (I wouldn't always know which exception to catch,
the primarily reason to use Exception as e).
3. If I actually pass the function, does it really mean no exception caught
and it went through every single line? Or is it because I set
`mock_object.return_value = (True, 'Success!')?
4. I am only using two dependencies here, do I need to patch out all the
external dependencies such as (os, sys, math, datetime) all in one? Or if
my function is using other functions (which are refactored)
def f1(*args, **kwargs):
f2(..) # use math, plot, datetime
f3(..) # use math and datetime
f4(..) # use datetime
Thanks. Sorry for the long questions. I really want to be good at writing
unittests.
--
Ted
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.idyll.org/pipermail/testing-in-python/attachments/20120423/074d41b4/attachment.htm>
More information about the testing-in-python
mailing list