Reloading the current module when unittesting

Question

When running a simple unittest it would sometimes be easier to be able to keep the tests inside the class. However, I don't know how to reload the current module, and so whenever that's needed I have to move the tests into a separate module. Is there a way around this?

module: foo
import unittest

class MyObject
...

class MockMyObject
...

class TestMock(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        MyObject = MockMyObject
        mocked = MyObject()

    def tearDown(self):
        reload(foo) # what goes here?

    def testFunction(self):
        mocked.do_mocked_function()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    unittest.main()

The way I've found to handle this is to import sys and reload(sys.modules[__name__]) in the tearDown method, but I'm wondering if there is a better method.

friedi · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-30 14:16:15Z

2

You can save your original class in a variable and restore it in the tearDown function.
Here is an example:

class TestMock(unittest.TestCase):

    original = MyObject

    def setUp(self):
        global MyObject
        MyObject = MockMyObject

    def tearDown(self):
        global MyObject
        MyObject = TestMock.original

    def testFunction(self):
        MyObject().do_mocked_function()

answered Oct 30, 2014 at 14:16

friedi

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1 Comment

Jamie Bull Over a year ago

That's great, thanks. And for pointing out the global part.

liaofeng · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-30 14:11:16Z

1

that's not a good idea to reload your module.

class TestMock(unittest.TestCase):

def setUp(self):
    MyObject = MockMyObject
    self.mocked = MyObject()

def tearDown(self):
    pass

def testFunction(self):
    self.mocked.do_mocked_function()

answered Oct 30, 2014 at 14:11

liaofeng

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2 Comments

Jamie Bull Over a year ago

In this case the tearDown method isn't doing anything. And if I have more than one test then any patched changes to MockMyObject will persist between them which is what I'm trying to avoid by with reload.

liaofeng Over a year ago

every test case will execute the setUp method firstly, then there will be a brand new self.mocked object of MyObject.

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