Mocking a class: Mock() or patch()?

I am using mock with Python and was wondering which of those two approaches is better (read: more pythonic).

Method one: Just create a mock object and use that. The code looks like:

def test_one (self):
    mock = Mock()
    mock.method.return_value = True 
    self.sut.something(mock) # This should called mock.method and checks the result. 
    self.assertTrue(mock.method.called)

Method two: Use patch to create a mock. The code looks like:

@patch("MyClass")
def test_two (self, mock):
    instance = mock.return_value
    instance.method.return_value = True
    self.sut.something(instance) # This should called mock.method and checks the result. 
    self.assertTrue(instance.method.called)

Both methods do the same thing. I am unsure of the differences.

Could anyone enlighten me?

mock.patch is a very very different critter than mock.Mock. patch replaces the class with a mock object and lets you work with the mock instance. Take a look at this snippet:

>>> class MyClass(object):
...   def __init__(self):
...     print 'Created MyClass@{0}'.format(id(self))
... 
>>> def create_instance():
...   return MyClass()
... 
>>> x = create_instance()
Created MyClass@4299548304
>>> 
>>> @mock.patch('__main__.MyClass')
... def create_instance2(MyClass):
...   MyClass.return_value = 'foo'
...   return create_instance()
... 
>>> i = create_instance2()
>>> i
'foo'
>>> def create_instance():
...   print MyClass
...   return MyClass()
...
>>> create_instance2()
<mock.Mock object at 0x100505d90>
'foo'
>>> create_instance()
<class '__main__.MyClass'>
Created MyClass@4300234128
<__main__.MyClass object at 0x100505d90>

patch replaces MyClass in a way that allows you to control the usage of the class in functions that you call. Once you patch a class, references to the class are completely replaced by the mock instance.

mock.patch is usually used when you are testing something that creates a new instance of a class inside of the test. mock.Mock instances are clearer and are preferred. If your self.sut.something method created an instance of MyClass instead of receiving an instance as a parameter, then mock.patch would be appropriate here.

I've got a YouTube video on this.

Short answer: Use mock when you're passing in the thing that you want mocked, and patch if you're not. Of the two, mock is strongly preferred because it means you're writing code with proper dependency injection.

Silly example:

# Use a mock to test this.
my_custom_tweeter(twitter_api, sentence):
    sentence.replace('cks','x')   # We're cool and hip.
    twitter_api.send(sentence)

# Use a patch to mock out twitter_api. You have to patch the Twitter() module/class 
# and have it return a mock. Much uglier, but sometimes necessary.
my_badly_written_tweeter(sentence):
    twitter_api = Twitter(user="XXX", password="YYY")
    sentence.replace('cks','x') 
    twitter_api.send(sentence)

Mocking a class: Mock() or patch()?

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