How to monkeypatch python's datetime.datetime.now with py.test?

You need to monkeypatch datetime.now function. In example below, I'm creating fixture which I can re-use later in other tests:

import datetime
import pytest

FAKE_TIME = datetime.datetime(2020, 12, 25, 17, 5, 55)

@pytest.fixture
def patch_datetime_now(monkeypatch):

    class mydatetime:
        @classmethod
        def now(cls):
            return FAKE_TIME

    monkeypatch.setattr(datetime, 'datetime', mydatetime)


def test_patch_datetime(patch_datetime_now):
    assert datetime.datetime.now() == FAKE_TIME

There is freezegun module:

from datetime import datetime
from freezegun import freeze_time # $ pip install freezegun

@freeze_time("Jan 14th, 2012")
def test_nice_datetime():
    assert datetime.now() == datetime(2012, 1, 14)

freeze_time() could also be used as a context manager. The module support specifying the local timezone UTC offset.

This is the fixture I use for overriding now() but keeping the rest of datetime working (RE: satoru's question).

It is not extensively tested, but it does get around issues where datetime is used in other contexts. For me this was important to keep the Django ORM working with these datetime values (Specifically isinstance(Freeze.now(), datetime.datetime) == True).

@pytest.fixture
def freeze(monkeypatch):
    """ Now() manager patches datetime return a fixed, settable, value
        (freezes time)
    """
    import datetime
    original = datetime.datetime

    class FreezeMeta(type):
        def __instancecheck__(self, instance):
            if type(instance) == original or type(instance) == Freeze:
                return True

    class Freeze(datetime.datetime):
        __metaclass__ = FreezeMeta

        @classmethod
        def freeze(cls, val):
            cls.frozen = val

        @classmethod
        def now(cls):
            return cls.frozen

        @classmethod
        def delta(cls, timedelta=None, **kwargs):
            """ Moves time fwd/bwd by the delta"""
            from datetime import timedelta as td
            if not timedelta:
                timedelta = td(**kwargs)
            cls.frozen += timedelta

    monkeypatch.setattr(datetime, 'datetime', Freeze)
    Freeze.freeze(original.now())
    return Freeze

Perhaps off topic, but might come in handy to other people arriving at this question. This fixture allows "freezing" time, and then moving it back and forth at will within your tests:

def test_timesensitive(freeze):
    freeze.freeze(2015, 1, 1)
    foo.prepare()  # Uses datetime.now() to prepare its state
    freeze.delta(days=2)
    # Does something that takes in consideration that 2 days have passed
    # i.e. datetime.now() returns a date 2 days in the future
    foo.do_something()
    assert foo.result == expected_result_after_2_days