[TIP] mock and patch

[Michael Foord]

On 22/03/2012 10:37, Andrea Crotti wrote:
> I was reading the doc at
> http://www.voidspace.org.uk/python/mock/patch.html#where-to-patch
>
> and so I tried this simple example, which I though would fail, because
> from the doc I should instead patch 'module.getcwd' instead of
> 'os.getcwd'.
>
>
> from os import getcwd
>
> @mock.patch('os.getcwd')
> def mycwd(_):
>     print(os.getcwd())
>
> mycwd()
>
> <MagicMock name='getcwd()' id='32916368'>
>
> But the patch actually works perfectly anyway, so am I misunderstanding
> the doc or maybe it's not updated to the last (smarter) behaviour of the
> mock library?

The key to patching is that you patch *where the object is looked up*. 
If you call "os.getcwd()" then you are looking up the "getcwd" function 
on the os module. It doesn't matter where you import "os", if you do 
"os.getcwd" then you are looking up "getcwd" on the os module. So 
directly in the os module is the right place to patch.

The alternative scenario is where you do "from os import getcwd" and 
then call "getcwd()" directly. In this case "getcwd" will be looked up 
in the module that imported it - and *then* you have to patch it in the 
module instead of in os.

All the best,

Michael Foord

>
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