Tips & tricks

Mocking functions with output parameters

Sometimes you will need to mock calls to interfaces that will force you to create some kind of object which later is used as an argument to that call. Value of that object is not constant, it is different on every run, so you will not be able to record adequate expectation using fixed value. Moreover, that object is changed by call to mocked interface method. How to mock that out?

This kind of problem exists in following simple class:

import io


class RemoteFileStorage:

    def __init__(self, bucket):
        self._bucket = bucket

    def read(self, name):
        buffer = io.BytesIO()  # (1)
        self._bucket.download('bucket-name', "uploads/{}".format(name), buffer)  # (2)
        return buffer.getvalue()

That class is kind of a facade on top of some cloud service for accessing files that were previously uploaded by another part of the application. To download the file we need to create a buffer (1) which is later passed to bucket.download() method (2). In production, that method downloads a file into a buffer, but how to actually mock that in test?

Here’s a solution:

from mockify.core import satisfied
from mockify.mock import Mock
from mockify.actions import Invoke
from mockify.matchers import _


def download(payload, bucket, key, fd):  # (1)
    fd.write(payload)


def test_reading_file_using_remote_storage():
    bucket = Mock('bucket')

    bucket.download.\
        expect_call('bucket-name', 'uploads/foo.txt', _).\
        will_once(Invoke(download, b'spam'))  # (2)

    storage = RemoteFileStorage(bucket)

    with satisfied(bucket):
        assert storage.read('foo.txt') == b'spam'  # (3)

And here’s an explanation:

  • We’ve implemented download() function - a minimal and dummy implementation of bucket.download() method. Our function simply writes given payload to file descriptor created in tested class and passed as a last argument.
  • We’ve recorded an expectation that bucket.download() will be called once with three args, having last argument wildcarded using mockify.matchers.Any matcher. Therefore, buffer object passed to a mock will match that expectation.
  • We’ve recorded single mockify.actions.Invoke action to execute function created in (1), with b'spam' bytes object bound as first argument (that’s why download() function accepts one more argument). With this approach we can force download() to write different bytes - depending on out test.
  • Finally, we’ve used assertion at (3) to check if tested method returns “downloaded” bytes.