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peps/pep-0417.txt
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| PEP: 417 | |
| Title: Including mock in the Standard Library | |
| Version: $Revision$ | |
| Last-Modified: $Date$ | |
| Author: Michael Foord <michael@python.org> | |
| Status: Final | |
| Type: Standards Track | |
| Content-Type: text/x-rst | |
| Created: 12-Mar-2012 | |
| Python-Version: 3.3 | |
| Post-History: 12-Mar-2012 | |
| Resolution: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-March/117507.html | |
| Abstract | |
| ======== | |
| This PEP proposes adding the mock [1]_ testing library | |
| to the Python standard library as ``unittest.mock``. | |
| Rationale | |
| ========= | |
| Creating mock objects for testing is a common need in Python. | |
| Many developers create ad-hoc mocks, as needed, in their test | |
| suites. This is currently what we do in the Python test suite, | |
| where a standardised mock object library would be helpful. | |
| There are many mock object libraries available for Python [2]_. | |
| Of these, mock is overwhelmingly the most popular, with as many | |
| downloads on PyPI as the other mocking libraries combined. | |
| An advantage of mock is that it is a mocking library and not a | |
| framework. It provides a configurable and flexible mock object, | |
| without being opinionated about how you write your tests. The | |
| mock api is now well battle-tested and stable. | |
| mock also handles safely monkeypatching and unmonkeypatching | |
| objects during the scope of a test. This is hard to do safely | |
| and many developers / projects mimic this functionality | |
| (often incorrectly). A standardised way to do this, handling | |
| the complexity of patching in the presence of the descriptor | |
| protocol (etc) is useful. People are asking for a "patch" [3]_ | |
| feature to unittest. Doing this via mock.patch is preferable | |
| to re-implementing part of this functionality in unittest. | |
| Background | |
| ========== | |
| Addition of mock to the Python standard library was discussed | |
| and agreed to at the Python Language Summit 2012. | |
| Open Issues | |
| =========== | |
| As of release 0.8, which is current at the time of writing, | |
| mock is compatible with Python 2.4-3.2. Moving into the Python | |
| standard library will allow for the removal of some Python 2 | |
| specific "compatibility hacks". | |
| mock 0.8 introduced a new feature, "auto-speccing", obsoletes | |
| an older mock feature called "mocksignature". The | |
| "mocksignature" functionality can be removed from mock | |
| altogether prior to inclusion. | |
| References | |
| ========== | |
| .. [1] `mock library on PyPI <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mock>`_ | |
| .. [2] http://pypi.python.org/pypi?%3Aaction=search&term=mock&submit=search | |
| .. [3] http://bugs.python.org/issue11664 | |
| Copyright | |
| ========= | |
| This document has been placed in the public domain. | |
| .. | |
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| coding: utf-8 | |
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