How to write mock for structs in Go

It takes more code to mock a struct in Go than other OOP languages that support full late binding.

This code must remain untouched since its taken from a 3rd party:

type Car struct {
    Name string
}

func (c Car) Run() { 
    fmt.Println("Real car " + c.Name + " is running")
}

type CarFactory struct {}

func (cf CarFactory) MakeCar(name string) Car {
    return Car{name}
}

Since Go only supports late binding on interface, I had to make Transport receive an interface as a parameter instead of a struct:

type ICar interface {
    Run()
}

type ICarFactory interface {
    MakeCar(name string) ICar
}

func Transport(cf ICarFactory) {
    ...
    car := cf.MakeCar("lamborghini")
    car.Run()
    ...
}

And here are the mocks:

type CarMock struct {
    Name string
}

func (cm CarMock) Run() {
    fmt.Println("Mocking car " + cm.Name + " is running")
}

type CarFactoryMock struct {}
func (cf CarFactoryMock) MakeCar(name string) ICar {
    return CarMock{name}
}

Now I can easily use the mock Transport(CarFactoryMock{}). But when I try to call the real method Transport(CarFactory{}), the go compiler shows me the following errors:

cannot use CarFactory literal (type CarFactory) as type ICarFactory in argument to Transport:
    CarFactory does not implement ICarFactory (wrong type for MakeCar method)
        have MakeCar(string) Car
        want MakeCar(string) ICar

As the message says, MakeCar function from the interface returns an ICar, but the real MakeCar returns a Car. Go doesn't allow that. To walk around this problem I had to define a wrapper to manually convert Car to ICar.

type CarFactoryWrapper struct {
    CarFactory
}

func (cf CarFactoryWrapper) MakeCar(name string) ICar {
    return cf.CarFactory.MakeCar(name)
}

Now you can call the Transport function like this: Transport(CarFactoryWrapper{CarFactory{}}).

Here is the working code https://play.golang.org/p/6YyeZP4tcC.


You use an interface.

type Employee interface {
    GetHuman() Human
}

type RealEmployee struct {
    Company string
    h Human
}

func (e RealEmployee) GetHuman() Human {
    return e.h
}

// Call Hire with real employee
Hire(RealEmployee{h: RealHuman})

Hire method accepts the interface Employee, then you can write one MockEmployee struct in your tests.

func Hire(e Employee) {
    ...
    h := e.GetHuman()
    fmt.Println(h.Name)
    ...
}

// Mock Employee instance
type MockEmployee struct {
    Company string
    h Human
}

func (m MockEmployee) GetHuman() Human {
    return m.h
}

// Call Hire to test with mock employee
Hire(MockEmployee{h: MockHuman})