Python unittest and unittest.mock

Each language has its own known testing framework which makes writing test cases easier. In Python, the standard and built-in are unittest module. Together with pytest or coverage, we can get a statistics of all the tests which can be displayed in GUI.

• test cases in unittest
  • Running the test
  • Before and after a test
  • Skip certain tests
  • Asserting methods
  • Common practices
• unittest.mock
  • A simple case
  • Notes
  • classes
  • Common practices
• Reference

test cases in unittest

• Implement a class which inherits from unittest.TestCase
• Add tests
  • Call related assert* methods to check results
• Add an entrance for the testing module

import operator
import unittest


class SimpleTestCase(unittest.TestCase):

    def test_add(self):
        a = 2
        b = 3
        self.assertEqual(5, operator.add(2, 3))


if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()

Running the test

We have added __name__ related code, so we can directly call the module. Assuming previous code is saved in a file named simple_test.py, we can run:

# Run all the tests in the module
python -m unittest simple_test[.py]

# Run a single test
python -m unittest simple_test.SimpleTestCase.test_add

If simple_test.py is saved in a different folder which means in a different module, we need to make sure that the testing module is importable. If simple_test is saved under a folder named tests, then there should be a __init__.py under that.

python -m unittest tests/simple_test.py

Before and after a test

If there are codes we need to run before a test (initialization code) or after a test (cleanup code), we can override setUp and tearDown.

import operator
import unittest

class SQLDB(object):

    def connect_db(self):
        pass

    def read_record(self):
        return 1

    def disconnect_db(self):
        pass


class SimpleTestCase(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        self._db = SQLDB()
        self._db.connect_db()

    def tearDown(self):
        self._db.disconnect_db()

    def test_add(self):
        self.assertEqual(1, self._db.read_record())


if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()

Skip certain tests

If there are tests we want to skip under certain condition, we can skip it instead of emitting an error by running it. We can skip a whole test and any single test by decorating with unittest.skipIf

import operator
import os
import unittest

try:
    import SQLDB
except ModuleNotFoundError:
    SQLDB = None

class SQLDB(object):

    def connect_db(self):
        pass

    def read_record(self):
        return 1

    def disconnect_db(self):
        pass


@unittest.skipIf(SQLDB is None, "SQLDB is not available")
class SimpleTestCase(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        self._db = SQLDB()
        self._db.connect_db()

    def tearDown(self):
        self._db.disconnect_db()

    @unittest.skipIf("DB_TEST" not in os.environ, "Not a testing environment")
    def test_add(self):
        self.assertEqual(1, self._db.read_record())


if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()

There are other skipping decorators:

• skip(reason)
  • Used to write customized skipping decorators

# Refer to https://www.chunyangwen.com/blog/python/python-descriptor-decorator.html
# for more details about a decorator

def skipUnlessHasattr(obj, attr):
    if hasattr(obj, attr):
        return lambda func: func
    return unittest.skip("{!r} doesn't have {!r}".format(obj, attr))

• skipUnless(condition, reason)
• skipIf(condition, reason)
• unittest.expectedFailure: A failure is a success.

Asserting methods

Method	Checks that
assertEqual(a, b)	a == b
assertNotEqual(a, b)	a != b
assertTrue(x)	bool(x) is True
assertFalse(x)	bool(x) is False
assertIs(a, b)	a is b
assertIsNot(a, b)	a is not b
assertIsNone(a)	a is None
assertIsNotNone(a)	a is not None
assertIn(a, b)	a in b
assertNotIn(a, b)	a not in b
assertIsInstance(a, b)	isinstance(a, b)
assertNotIsInstance(a, b)	not instance(a, b)
Raises or warnings
assertRaises(exc, fun, *args, **kwargs)	fun(*args, **kwargs) raise exc
assertRaisesRegex(exc, r, fun, *args, **kwargs)	fun(*args, **kwargs) raise exc, message matches regex r
assertWarns(warn, fun, *args, **kwargs)	fun(*args, **kwargs) raise exc
assertWarnsRegex(warn, r, fun, *args, **kwargs)	fun(*args, **kwargs) raise warn, message matches regex r
assertLogs(logger, level)	The with block logs on logger with minimum level
Number related
assertAlmostEqual(a, b)	round(a-b, 7) == 0
assertNotAlmostEqual(a, b)	round(a-b, 7) != 0
assertGreater(a, b)	a > b
assertGreaterEqual(a, b)	a >= b
assertLess(a, b)	a < b
assertLessEqual(a, b)	a <= b
assertRegex(s, r)	r.search(s)
assertNotRegex(s, r)	not r.search(s)
assertCountEqual(a, b)	a and b have the same elements in the same number, regardless of the order
Sequence related
assertMultLineEqual(a, b)	strings
assertSequenceEqual(a, b)	sequences
assertListEqual(a, b)	lists
assertTupleEqual(a, b)	tuples
assertSetEqual(a, b)	sets or frozensets
assertDictEqual(a, b)	dicts

Common practices

# assert whether certain log happens
with self.assertLogs(logger, level="INFO") as cm:
    # bla bla
    self.assertRegex(" ".join(cm.output), ".*xxx.*")

with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
    # bla bla

unittest.mock

Mock is very important is tests.

• You don’t want your test cases fail due to an unrelated service.
• You don’t want your test cases coupled with each other:
  • Testing functionalities of a while b may fail.

A simple case

Usually we will use unittest.mock.patch to help us write tests. We can patch:

• constants
  • Actually I think this is easy done without mock.
• a module function
• a class method
• a static method
• an object method

# my_module.py

import os

def get_more_magic_values():
    return [42] * 2


def get_magic_value():
    return get_more_magic_values()[0]


def listdir(p):
    return os.listdir(p)


class ObjectToBeMocked(object):

    HelloWorld = 3

    def hello(self):
        return ObjectToBeMocked.HelloWorld

    def hi(self):
        return self.hello() + 1

    @property
    def beer(self):
        return -1

    @classmethod
    def oops(cls):
        return "oops"

We save above code into a file named my_module.py. Most of the functions and methods are just naively implemented. So how we can test it?

import unittest
from unittest import mock
from unittest.mock import patch
from my_module import ObjectToBeMocked
import my_module


class MyModuleTest(unittest.TestCase):

    @patch("my_module.ObjectToBeMocked.HelloWorld", 42)
    def test_hello(self):
        self.assertEqual(42, my_module.ObjectToBeMocked().hello())

    @patch.object(my_module.ObjectToBeMocked, "hello", return_value=42)
    def test_hi(self, hello):
        o = ObjectToBeMocked()
        self.assertEqual(43, o.hi())

    @patch.object(my_module.ObjectToBeMocked, "hello")
    def test_hi_1(self, hello):
        hello.return_value = -1
        o = ObjectToBeMocked()
        self.assertEqual(0, o.hi())

    @patch("my_module.get_more_magic_values")
    def test_get_magic_value(self, get_more_magic_values):
        get_more_magic_values.return_value = [41]
        self.assertEqual(41, my_module.get_magic_value())

    @patch("my_module.ObjectToBeMocked.beer", new_callable=mock.PropertyMock())
    def test_property_beer(self, prop):
        prop.return_value = -2
        self.assertEqual(-2, my_module.ObjectToBeMocked().beer())

    @patch("my_module.os")
    def test_mock_os(self, mock_os):
        mock_os.listdir.return_value = ["hi", "hello"]
        self.assertListEqual(["hi", "hello"], my_module.listdir("."))

Notes

• We have to mock the module where it is used. NOT from a general place
  • Please refer to mock_os
• When it comes to an instance, patch.object is used instead of patch.
• Difference between patch and patch.object:
  • patch.object mocks a single method or attributes, target is also the class

classes

• unittest.mock.Mock
• unittest.mock.MagicMock
• unittest.mock.PropertyMock
• unittest.mock.AsyncMock

Common practices

# create a side-effect
with patch(Clz, "method", side_effect=ValueError) as mock_method:
    ins = Clz()
    self.assertRaise(ValueError):
        ins.method()

from unittest.mock import create_autospec

# automatically behaves like `Clz`
MockObject = create_autospec(Clz)

Reference

• Python unittest
• Python unitest.mock
• unittest.mock cookbook
• Real Python