PEP: 417
Title: Including mock in the Standard Library
Author: Michael Foord <michael@python.org>
Status: Final
Type: Standards Track
Created: 12-Mar-2012
Python-Version: 3.3
Post-History: 12-Mar-2012
Resolution: https://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2012-March/117507.html


Abstract
========

This PEP proposes adding the mock [1]_ testing library
to the Python standard library as ``unittest.mock``.


Rationale
=========

Creating mock objects for testing is a common need in Python.
Many developers create ad-hoc mocks, as needed, in their test
suites. This is currently what we do in the Python test suite,
where a standardised mock object library would be helpful.

There are many mock object libraries available for Python [2]_.
Of these, mock is overwhelmingly the most popular, with as many
downloads on PyPI as the other mocking libraries combined.

An advantage of mock is that it is a mocking library and not a
framework. It provides a configurable and flexible mock object,
without being opinionated about how you write your tests. The
mock api is now well battle-tested and stable.

mock also handles safely monkeypatching and unmonkeypatching
objects during the scope of a test. This is hard to do safely
and many developers / projects mimic this functionality
(often incorrectly). A standardised way to do this, handling
the complexity of patching in the presence of the descriptor
protocol (etc) is useful. People are asking for a "patch" [3]_
feature to unittest. Doing this via mock.patch is preferable
to re-implementing part of this functionality in unittest.


Background
==========

Addition of mock to the Python standard library was discussed
and agreed to at the Python Language Summit 2012.


Open Issues
===========

As of release 0.8, which is current at the time of writing,
mock is compatible with Python 2.4-3.2. Moving into the Python
standard library will allow for the removal of some Python 2
specific "compatibility hacks".

mock 0.8 introduced a new feature, "auto-speccing", obsoletes
an older mock feature called "mocksignature". The
"mocksignature" functionality can be removed from mock
altogether prior to inclusion.


References
==========

.. [1] `mock library on PyPI <http://pypi.python.org/pypi/mock>`_
.. [2] http://pypi.python.org/pypi?%3Aaction=search&term=mock&submit=search
.. [3] http://bugs.python.org/issue11664


Copyright
=========

This document has been placed in the public domain.
