Python Test Spy Engine – MI7
Introduction
MI7 is my new pet project. I grew tired of the other mocking/stubbing/spying engines in Python that never did quite what I expected them to.
I’ve been TDDing for a while now in .Net, Ruby, Python and JavaScript. I’ve got my fair share of experience, so I figured I’d give my 2¢ in this issue.
You can check the project at https://github.com/heynemann/mi7/wiki. It’s got a nice tutorial and is currently in 0.1.1 alpha release.
I’ve got a lot of work to do to make it my main tool for test support, but I’m going to get there. Without further delay, let’s get to it.
Why another Spying Engine?
If you check the MI7 wiki you’ll see that I don’t have anything against any single python test support engine. I just haven’t found one that suits my needs and those needs ONLY. IMHO they all do too much. I want a simple, straightforward, fun to use spying engine.
Don’t get me wrong, but I do not believe in mocking in Python. Or stubbing for that matter. Both are akin to dependency injection, IMHO. It just isn’t pythonic.
Python has been around for a while. In this time, there has been a certain Modus Operandi of doing work. This MO has never included injecting your dependencies around. I figured that’s why I feel the weirdness on the part of the mocking/stubbing/spying tools.
With MI7 I’m trying to interfere as less as possible with your code. Production code should be optimized to be production code, and not changed to accommodate your poor testing tools. In the Ruby community they try HARD to make tests and code as clear as possible, not make code work according to tools. I’m trying to get some of that.
The last point of me doing MI7 is to have some fun, and I’m trying to bake in the library as much of that fun as possible, with the spy agency metaphor. Hope you enjoy as much as I am.
Test Sample
Ok, so I’ll write a test with MI7. It’s pretty simple:
from controllers import MyController
from models import User
@new_mission
@agent.spy(User)
def test_user_is_authenticated():
agents.User.intercept('is_authenticated') \
.returns(True)
agents.User.intercept('username') \
.as_attribute('Bernardo')
ctrl = MyController()
result = ctrl.index()
assert result == "Welcome Bernardo"So what’s happening here. I’m telling MI7 to keep an eye in the User model, wherever it may be used. Then I’m instructing the User agent (the agents get their code-name from the target they are spying), to intercept calls to is_authenticated and username and return my values.
Now the controller code:
from models import User
class Controller(object):
def index(self):
user = User()
if user.is_authenticated():
return "Welcome %s" % user.username
return "Unauthorized"
As you can see, there's not a single line of code in that controller that says "I'm testable". It's just plain old python coding.
Current Status
Currently MI7 supports intercepting modules and classes and telling agents to intercept methods and attributes and to raise exceptions.
Impersonation (stubbing) may come next. Definitely assertions are coming, like what an agent has seen and such.
Conclusion
I’ll keep going with MI7 development as much as I can, because I believe the Python community needs better testing tools and I’m willing to put extra effort into this.
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