Mocking ftplib.FTP for unit testing Python code
I suggest using pytest and pytest-mock.
from pytest_mock import mocker
def test_download_file(mocker):
ftp_constructor_mock = mocker.patch('ftplib.FTP')
ftp_mock = ftp_constructor_mock.return_value
download_file('ftp.server.local', 'pub/files', 'wanted_file.txt')
ftp_constructor_mock.assert_called_with('ftp.server.local')
assert ftp_mock.login.called
ftp_mock.cwd.assert_called_with('pub/files')
When you do patch(ftplib.FTP)
you are patching FTP
constructor. dowload_file()
use it to build ftp
object so your ftp
object on which you call login()
and cmd()
will be mock_ftp.return_value
instead of mock_ftp
.
Your test code should be follow:
class TestDownloader(unittest.TestCase):
@patch('ftplib.FTP', autospec=True)
def test_download_file(self, mock_ftp_constructor):
mock_ftp = mock_ftp_constructor.return_value
download_file('ftp.server.local', 'pub/files', 'wanted_file.txt')
mock_ftp_constructor.assert_called_with('ftp.server.local')
self.assertTrue(mock_ftp.login.called)
mock_ftp.cwd.assert_called_with('pub/files')
I added all checks and autospec=True
just because is a good practice
Like Ibrohim's answer, I prefer pytest with mocker.
I have went a bit further and have actually wrote a library which helps me to mock easily. Here is how to use it for your case.
You start by having your code and a basic pytest function, with the addition of my helper library to generate mocks to modules and the matching asserts generation:
import ftplib
from mock_autogen.pytest_mocker import PytestMocker
def download_file(hostname, file_path, file_name):
ftp = ftplib.FTP(hostname)
ftp.login()
ftp.cwd(file_path)
def test_download_file(mocker):
import sys
print(PytestMocker(mocked=sys.modules[__name__],
name=__name__).mock_modules().prepare_asserts_calls().generate())
download_file('ftp.server.local', 'pub/files', 'wanted_file.txt')
When you run the test for the first time, it would fail due to unknown DNS, but the print statement which wraps my library would give us this valuable input:
...
mock_ftplib = mocker.MagicMock(name='ftplib')
mocker.patch('test_29817963.ftplib', new=mock_ftplib)
...
import mock_autogen
...
print(mock_autogen.generator.generate_asserts(mock_ftplib, name='mock_ftplib'))
I'm placing this in the test and would run it again:
def test_download_file(mocker):
mock_ftplib = mocker.MagicMock(name='ftplib')
mocker.patch('test_29817963.ftplib', new=mock_ftplib)
download_file('ftp.server.local', 'pub/files', 'wanted_file.txt')
import mock_autogen
print(mock_autogen.generator.generate_asserts(mock_ftplib, name='mock_ftplib'))
This time the test succeeds and I only need to collect the result of the second print to get the proper asserts:
def test_download_file(mocker):
mock_ftplib = mocker.MagicMock(name='ftplib')
mocker.patch(__name__ + '.ftplib', new=mock_ftplib)
download_file('ftp.server.local', 'pub/files', 'wanted_file.txt')
mock_ftplib.FTP.assert_called_once_with('ftp.server.local')
mock_ftplib.FTP.return_value.login.assert_called_once_with()
mock_ftplib.FTP.return_value.cwd.assert_called_once_with('pub/files')
If you would like to keep using unittest
while using my library, I'm accepting pull requests.