Question

I’ve tried

from mock import Mock
import __builtin__

__builtin__.print = Mock()

But that raises a syntax error. I’ve also tried patching it like so

@patch('__builtin__.print')
def test_something_that_performs_lots_of_prints(self, mock_print):

    # assert stuff

Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

print is a keyword in python 2.x, using it as attribute raises a SyntaxError. You can avoid that by using from __future__ import print_function in the beginning of the file.

Note: you can’t simply use setattr, because the print function you modified doesn’t get invoked unless the print statement is disabled.

Edit: you also need to from __future__ import print_function in every file you want your modified print function to be used, or it will be masked by the print statement.