Question

In general I want to disable as little code as possible, and I want it to be explicit: I don’t want the code being tested to decide whether it’s a test or not, I want the test to tell that code “hey, BTW, I’m running a unit test, can you please not make your call to solr, instead can you please stick what you would send to solr in this spot so I can check it”. I have my ideas but I don’t like any of them, I am hoping that there’s a good pythonic way to do this.

Answer 1

Use Michael Foord’s Mock
in your unit test do this:

from mock import Mock

class Person(object):
    def __init__(self, name):
        super(Person, self).__init__()
        self.name = name

    def say(self, str):
        print "%s says \"%s\"" % (self.name, str)


...

#In your unit test....
#create the class as normal
person = Person("Bob")
#now mock all of person's methods/attributes
person = Mock(spec=person)
#talkto is some function you are testing
talkTo(person)
#make sure the Person class's say method was called
self.assertTrue(person.say.called, "Person wasn't asked to talk")

#make sure the person said "Hello"
args = ("Hello")
keywargs = {}
self.assertEquals(person.say.call_args, (args, keywargs), "Person did not say hello")