Most common assertions

Uninterested mock calls

Just after mock object is created, it does not have any expectations recorded. Calling a mock with no expectations is by default not possible and results in mockify.exc.UninterestedCall assertion and test termination:

>>> from mockify.mock import Mock
>>> mock = Mock('mock')
>>> mock()
Traceback (most recent call last):
    ...
mockify.exc.UninterestedCall: No expectations recorded for mock:

at <doctest default[2]>:1
-------------------------
Called:
  mock()

That error will be raised for any attribute you would call on such mock with no expectations. That default behavior can be changed (see Using sessions for more details), but it can get really useful. For example, if you are writing tests for existing code, you could write tests in step-by-step mode, recording expectations one-by-one.

Unexpected mock calls

This new behavior was introduced in version 0.6.

It is meant to differentiate mocks that has no expectations from mocks that have at least one, but not matching actual call. This is illustrated by following example:

from mockify.mock import Mock

mock = Mock('mock')
mock.expect_call(1, 2)

We have mock mock that is expected to be called with 1 and 2 as two positional arguments. And now, if that mock is called with unexpected parameters, for instance 1 and 3, mockify.exc.UnexpectedCall assertion will be raised:

>>> mock(1, 3)
Traceback (most recent call last):
    ...
mockify.exc.UnexpectedCall: No matching expectations found for call:

at <doctest default[0]>:1
-------------------------
Called:
  mock(1, 3)
Expected (any of):
  mock(1, 2)

That error is basically extended version of previous uninterested call error, with additional list of existing expectations. That will make it easier to decide if expectation has a typo, or if there is a bug in tested code.

Unsatisfied and satisfied mocks

All previously presented assertion errors can only be raised during mock call. But even if mock is called with expected parameters and for each call matching expectation is found, we still need a way to verify if expectations we’ve recorded are satisfied, which means that all are called expected number of times.

To check if mock is satisfied you can use mockify.core.assert_satisfied() function. This function can be used more than once, but usually the best place to check if mock is satisfied is at the end of test function.

Each newly created mock is already satisfied:

from mockify.core import assert_satisfied
from mockify.mock import Mock

foo = Mock('foo')

assert_satisfied(foo)

Let’s now record some expectation:

foo.bar.expect_call('spam')

When expectation is recorded, then mock becomes unsatisfied, which means that it is not yet or not fully consumed. That will be reported with mockify.exc.Unsatisfied assertion:

>>> assert_satisfied(foo)
Traceback (most recent call last):
    ...
mockify.exc.Unsatisfied: Following expectation is not satisfied:

at <doctest default[0]>:1
-------------------------
Pattern:
  foo.bar('spam')
Expected:
  to be called once
Actual:
  never called

The exception will print out all unsatisfied expectations with their:

  • location in test code,
  • call pattern that describes function or method with its parameters,
  • expected call count of the pattern,
  • and actual call count.

By reading exception we see that our method is expected to be called once and was never called. That’s true, because we’ve only recorded an expectation so far. To make foo satisfied again we need to call the method with params that will match the expectation:

from mockify.core import satisfied

with satisfied(foo):
    foo.bar('spam')

In example above we’ve used mockify.core.satisfied() context manager instead of mockify.core.assert_satisfied() presented above. Those two work in exactly the same way, raising exactly the same exceptions, but context manager version is better suited for simple tests or when you want to mark part of test code that satisfies all given mocks.

If you now call our expected method again, the call will not raise any exceptions:

foo.bar('spam')

And even if you run it 5 more times, it will still just work:

for _ in range(5):
    foo.bar('spam')

But the mock will no longer be satisfied even after first of that additional calls:

>>> assert_satisfied(foo)
Traceback (most recent call last):
    ...
mockify.exc.Unsatisfied: Following expectation is not satisfied:

at <doctest default[0]>:1
-------------------------
Pattern:
  foo.bar('spam')
Expected:
  to be called once
Actual:
  called 7 times

So once again, we have mockify.exc.Unsatisfied raised. But as you can see, the mock was called 7 times so far, while it still is expected to be called exactly once.

Why there was no exception raised on second call?

Well, this was made like this actually to make life easier. Mockify allows you to record very sophisticated expectations, including expected call count ranges etc. And when mock is called it does not know how many times it will be called during the test, so we must explicitly tell it that testing is done. And that’s why mockify.core.assert_satisfied() is needed. Moreover, it is the only single assertion function you will find in Mockify (not counting its context manager counterpart).