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Q&A How to mock methods like `pathlib.Path.is_dir`?

I used to have some testing code for mocking a simple directory structure when working with pathlib. I recently tried to run these tests to learn that some of the internals in pathlib have changed ...

1 answer  ·  posted 2mo ago by mr Tsjolder‭  ·  last activity 2mo ago by mr Tsjolder‭

#1: Initial revision by user avatar mr Tsjolder‭ · 2024-10-08T15:14:01Z (2 months ago)
How to mock methods like `pathlib.Path.is_dir`?
I used to have some testing code for mocking a simple directory structure when working with `pathlib`. I recently tried to run these tests to learn that some of the internals in `pathlib` have changed in recent Python versions, breaking my mocking setup. I managed to resolve some of the issues already, but I got stuck on an issue that feels like it shouldn't be one.

Concretely, I have been mocking `pathlib.Path.is_dir` as follows:
```python
from pathlib import Path
from unittest import mock

some_path = Path("/some/path/")
with mock.patch("pathlib.Path.is_dir") as m_is_dir:
    m_is_dir.side_effect = lambda p: p.name == ""
    print(Path.is_dir(some_path))  # this is just a placeholder
```

Now, the problem is that the code in newer Python versions (internally) seems to be using `some_path.is_dir()` instead. As a result, I get a `TypeError` about a missing positional argument `p` for my lambda expression. This can be simulated by the following code
```python
with mock.patch("pathlib.Path.is_dir") as m_is_dir:
    m_is_dir.side_effect = lambda p: p.name == ""
    print(some_path.is_dir())  # this is just a placeholder
```

This can be fixed by rewriting the mocking function
```python
with mock.patch("pathlib.Path.is_dir") as m_is_dir:
    m_is_dir.side_effect = lambda: some_path.name == ""
    print(some_path.is_dir())  # this is just a placeholder 
```
but of course that breaks the tests for the older versions again.

I have tried to patch `some_path.is_dir` directly, using
```python
with mock.patch("pathlib.Path.is_dir") as m_is_dir:
    m_is_dir.side_effect = lambda p: p.name == ""
    some_path.is_dir = lambda: m_is_dir(some_path)
    print(some_path.is_dir())  # this is just a placeholder 
```
but that resulted in an `AttributeError` because `is_dir` is read-only.

I actually would have assumed that patching `Path.is_dir(p)` (indirectly) patch the bound method `p.is_dir` as well, but that does not seem to be the case. So that leaves me with the question: is there a robust way to patch methods that can be called either way? Or more concretely: how can I patch `Path.is_dir` so that the following works?
```python
from pathlib import Path
from unittest import mock

some_path = Path("/some/path/")
with mock.patch(???) as m_is_dir:
    m_is_dir.side_effect = lambda p: p.name == ""
    print(Path.is_dir(some_path))
    print(some_path.is_dir())
```

It might be that there is an obvious solution, but I am in too deep and I don't seem to be able to find it, so any help would be greatly appreciated.