CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonunit-testing
anon_swe
anon_swe

Reputation: 9355

Python Unit Testing: Avoiding API Calls

I've written some code that makes calls to the SalesforceIQ API. I'm now trying to unit test my code (writing a unit test for each of my functions). I'm a little unsure how to go about this since I need to do something to avoid making API calls.

Here's an example function I'm trying to test:

def update_contact(name, phone, address, contact_id):
    contact = Contact(contact_id)
    set_contact_fields(contact, name, phone, address)
    return contact.update()

contact.update() is an API call. So I'd like to avoid calling contact.update() while still testing update_contact is updating those three fields (name, phone, address).

Any recs for how to go about this?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 0

Views: 545

Answers (2)

xandermonkey
xandermonkey

Reputation: 4422

Is there a __repr__() or __str__() method for the Contact object? If not, why not write one? Then you can just print the contact and see what it is. Or do something else with the string it returns if you want to further automate your testing.

Upvotes: 0

Anonymous
Anonymous

Reputation: 12100

You can use patch (mock.patch in python2, unittest.mock.patch in python3) to patch that method:

@patch.object(Contact, 'update')
def test_api_call(self, update):
    # "update" is the patched method, instace of `MagicMock`
    update_contact('name', 'phone', 'address', 'contact_id')
    update.assert_called_once_with()

Python documentation.

Upvotes: 1

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