pytest-automock

Reason

• No generic automock solution

Features

• Pytest plugin
• Autogenerate/autouse mocks for functions and objects
• Sync and async support
• Locked mode to be sure mocked objects stay untouched
• Customizable serialization

Limitations

• No support for dunder methods (can be partly solved in future)
• No support for sync/async generators/contexts
• Races can break tests, since order counts
• Non-determenistic representation will break tests, since representation is a part of call snapshot key

License

pytest-automock is offered under MIT license.

Requirements

• python 3.6+

Usage

Lets say you have some module mymod.py:

import time

class Network:
    def get_data_from_network(self, x, y):
        time.sleep(1)
        return x + y

    def send_data_to_network(self, value):
        time.sleep(1)

def logic(x):
    n = Network()
    a, b = 0, 1
    while b < x:
        c = n.get_data_from_network(a, b)
        a, b = b, c
        n.send_data_to_network("ok")
    return b

And you want to create mocks for your Network class (since testing time and sane counts), but you are too lazy to write them... conftest.py:

import pytest
import mymod

@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
def _mocks(automock):
    with automock((mymod, "Network")):
        yield

You can also use module path notation:

import pytest

@pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
def _mocks(automock):
    with automock("mymod.Network"):
        yield

test_logic.py:

from mymod import logic

def test_logic():
    assert logic(7) == 8
    assert logic(10) == 13

If you run pytest on this setup, then you will see fail:

$ pytest -x
...
E           RuntimeError: Mock is locked, but '__init__' wanted

automock can work in two modes: locked and unlocked. Locked mode is default, real methods calls of mocked objects are not allowed in this mode. So, above error says that we can't call __init__ of our Network. In locked mode there is no mock-files update also.

To allow real calls and mocks generation automock provides extra cli argument to pytest: --automock-unlocked

$ pytest -x --automock-unlocked
...
test_logic.py .
...
1 passed in 22.09s

After that you can see that tests/mocks/test_logic/mymod/Network file was created. This is mock for your test sequence. Now you can rerun tests and see what happens (you can omit --automock-unlocked key for ensurance, that real object will not be touched (actually even created)).

$ pytest -x
...
test_logic.py .
...
1 passed in 0.04s

API

automock (fixture)

automock fixture is a context manager

def automock(*targets,
             storage: Union[str, Path] = "tests/mocks",
             override_name: Optional[str] = None,
             unlocked: Optional[bool] = None,
             remove: Optional[bool] = None,
             encode: Callable[[Any], bytes] = default_encode,
             decode: Callable[[bytes], Any] = default_decode,
             debug: Optional[Callable[[Dict, Call, Optional[Call]], None]] = None)

• *targets: pair/tuple of object/module and attribute name (str) or module path to object/function with dot delimiter ((mymod, "Network") or "mymod.Network")
• storage: root path for storing mocks
• override_name: forced mock-file name
• unlocked: mode selector (if omited, selected by --automock-unlocked)
• remove: remove test mock before test run (if omited, selected by --automock-remove)
• encode: encode routine
• decode: decode routine
• debug: function for debugging failed cases, when you do not understand why automock bakes. Arguments are:
  • memory for current failed test
  • call_wanted which is a call you want to do right now
  • call_saved which is a call you saved last time you generate mocks for this test

call_wanted and call_saved are rich Call class objects, inspect it in mock.py file. Also, you can use a "pdb" string instead of your own function as a debug argument value, to use internal function with pdb.set_trace() instruction. Default encode/decode routine uses pickle and gzip.

automock_unlocked (fixture)

Fixture with default mode from cli parameter (bool).

automock_remove (fixture)

Fixture with default mode from cli parameter (bool).

automock (function)

automock function is not supposed to be used by anyone but automock fixture

def automock(factory: Callable, *,
             memory: Dict,
             locked: bool = True,
             encode: Callable[[Any], bytes] = default_encode,
             decode: Callable[[bytes], Any] = default_decode,
             debug: Optional[Callable[[Dict, Call, Optional[Call]], None]] = None):

• factory: object/function to wrap
• memory: dicrionary to get/put mocks
• locked: mode selector
• encode: encode routine
• decode: decode routine
• debug: same as for ficture

Default encode/decode routine uses pickle and gzip.

Caveats

Order

As feature paragraph described: «order counts». What does it mean?

Functions

Mocked functions/coroutines call order counts. If you mock sequence

func(1, 2)
func(2, 3)

and trying to use mocked data with sequence

func(2, 3)
func(1, 2)

You will get an error, since calling order is part of idea of deterministic tests

Objects

Mocked objects have same behavior, but methods call are individual, so if you mock sequence

t1 = T(1)
t2 = T(2)
t1.func(1, 2)
t2.func(2, 3)

then calling order are individual for method calls, so this is ok:

t1 = T(1)
t2 = T(2)
t2.func(2, 3)
t1.func(1, 2)

But not for __init__ method, since mocks are internaly attached to instance

t2 = T(2)
t1 = T(1)
t1.func(1, 2)
t2.func(2, 3)

will fail

Function arguments

Internally, key for mocks consists of instance number and call number. This leads to some «unobvious» behavior:

import time
from pytest_automock import automock

def nop(x):
    return x

m = {}
mocked = automock(nop, memory=m, locked=False)
mocked(time.time())

mocked = automock(nop, memory=m, locked=True)
mocked(time.time())

Will fail because of argument in mock creation time differs from argument in mock use time. Same thing will break mocks if pickled representation is not determenistic.

Development

Run tests

Since coverage issue/feature, plugins coverage is broken by default. Workaround:

COV_CORE_SOURCE=pytest_automock COV_CORE_CONFIG=.coveragerc COV_CORE_DATAFILE=.coverage.eager pytest