test_ok2/doc/monkeypatch.txt

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Monkeypatching/mocking modules and environments
================================================================
.. currentmodule:: _pytest.monkeypatch
Sometimes tests need to invoke functionality which depends
on global settings or which invokes code which cannot be easily
tested such as network access. The ``monkeypatch`` function argument
helps you to safely set/delete an attribute, dictionary item or
environment variable or to modify ``sys.path`` for importing.
See the `monkeypatch blog post`_ for some introduction material
and a discussion of its motivation.
.. _`monkeypatch blog post`: http://tetamap.wordpress.com/2009/03/03/monkeypatching-in-unit-tests-done-right/
Simple example: patching ``os.path.expanduser``
---------------------------------------------------
If, for instance, you want to pretend that ``os.expanduser`` returns a certain
directory, you can use the :py:meth:`monkeypatch.setattr` method to
patch this function before calling into a function which uses it::
import os.path
def getssh(): # pseudo application code
return os.path.join(os.path.expanduser("~admin"), '.ssh')
def test_mytest(monkeypatch):
def mockreturn(path):
return '/abc'
monkeypatch.setattr(os.path, 'expanduser', mockreturn)
x = getssh()
assert x == '/abc/.ssh'
After the test function finishes the ``os.path.expanduser`` modification
will be undone.
.. background check:
$ py.test
=========================== test session starts ============================
platform linux2 -- Python 2.7.1 -- pytest-2.1.1
collecting ... collected 0 items
============================= in 0.00 seconds =============================
Method reference of the monkeypatch function argument
-----------------------------------------------------
.. autoclass:: monkeypatch
:members: setattr, delattr, setitem, delitem, setenv, delenv, syspath_prepend, undo
``monkeypatch.setattr/delattr/delitem/delenv()`` all
by default raise an Exception if the target does not exist.
Pass ``raising=False`` if you want to skip this check.