<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <title>Sentinel — Mock 1.0.0 documentation</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/nature.css" type="text/css" /> <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" /> <script type="text/javascript"> var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = { URL_ROOT: '', VERSION: '1.0.0', COLLAPSE_INDEX: false, FILE_SUFFIX: '.html', HAS_SOURCE: true }; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/jquery.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/underscore.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="_static/doctools.js"></script> <link rel="top" title="Mock 1.0.0 documentation" href="index.html" /> <link rel="next" title="Mocking Magic Methods" href="magicmock.html" /> <link rel="prev" title="Helpers" href="helpers.html" /> </head> <body> <div class="related"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="genindex.html" title="General Index" accesskey="I">index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="magicmock.html" title="Mocking Magic Methods" accesskey="N">next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="helpers.html" title="Helpers" accesskey="P">previous</a> |</li> <li><a href="index.html">Mock 1.0.0 documentation</a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="document"> <div class="documentwrapper"> <div class="bodywrapper"> <div class="body"> <div class="section" id="sentinel"> <h1>Sentinel<a class="headerlink" href="#sentinel" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1> <dl class="data"> <dt id="mock.sentinel"> <tt class="descname">sentinel</tt><a class="headerlink" href="#mock.sentinel" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>The <tt class="docutils literal"><span class="pre">sentinel</span></tt> object provides a convenient way of providing unique objects for your tests.</p> <p>Attributes are created on demand when you access them by name. Accessing the same attribute will always return the same object. The objects returned have a sensible repr so that test failure messages are readable.</p> </dd></dl> <dl class="data"> <dt id="mock.DEFAULT"> <tt class="descname">DEFAULT</tt><a class="headerlink" href="#mock.DEFAULT" title="Permalink to this definition">¶</a></dt> <dd><p>The <cite>DEFAULT</cite> object is a pre-created sentinel (actually <cite>sentinel.DEFAULT</cite>). It can be used by <a class="reference internal" href="mock.html#mock.Mock.side_effect" title="mock.Mock.side_effect"><tt class="xref py py-attr docutils literal"><span class="pre">side_effect</span></tt></a> functions to indicate that the normal return value should be used.</p> </dd></dl> <div class="section" id="sentinel-example"> <h2>Sentinel Example<a class="headerlink" href="#sentinel-example" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2> <p>Sometimes when testing you need to test that a specific object is passed as an argument to another method, or returned. It can be common to create named sentinel objects to test this. <cite>sentinel</cite> provides a convenient way of creating and testing the identity of objects like this.</p> <p>In this example we monkey patch <cite>method</cite> to return <cite>sentinel.some_object</cite>:</p> <div class="highlight-python"><div class="highlight"><pre><span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">real</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">ProductionClass</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">real</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">method</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">Mock</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">name</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"method"</span><span class="p">)</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">real</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">method</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">return_value</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">sentinel</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">some_object</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">result</span> <span class="o">=</span> <span class="n">real</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">method</span><span class="p">()</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="k">assert</span> <span class="n">result</span> <span class="ow">is</span> <span class="n">sentinel</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">some_object</span> <span class="gp">>>> </span><span class="n">sentinel</span><span class="o">.</span><span class="n">some_object</span> <span class="go">sentinel.some_object</span> </pre></div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> </div> <div class="sphinxsidebar"> <div class="sphinxsidebarwrapper"> <h3><a href="index.html">Table Of Contents</a></h3> <ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#">Sentinel</a><ul> <li><a class="reference internal" href="#sentinel-example">Sentinel Example</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> <h4>Previous topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="helpers.html" title="previous chapter">Helpers</a></p> <h4>Next topic</h4> <p class="topless"><a href="magicmock.html" title="next chapter">Mocking Magic Methods</a></p> <h3>This Page</h3> <ul class="this-page-menu"> <li><a href="_sources/sentinel.txt" rel="nofollow">Show Source</a></li> </ul> <div id="searchbox" style="display: none"> <h3>Quick search</h3> <form class="search" action="search.html" method="get"> <input type="text" name="q" /> <input type="submit" value="Go" /> <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" /> <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" /> </form> <p class="searchtip" style="font-size: 90%"> Enter search terms or a module, class or function name. </p> </div> <script type="text/javascript">$('#searchbox').show(0);</script> </div> </div> <div class="clearer"></div> </div> <div class="related"> <h3>Navigation</h3> <ul> <li class="right" style="margin-right: 10px"> <a href="genindex.html" title="General Index" >index</a></li> <li class="right" > <a href="magicmock.html" title="Mocking Magic Methods" >next</a> |</li> <li class="right" > <a href="helpers.html" title="Helpers" >previous</a> |</li> <li><a href="index.html">Mock 1.0.0 documentation</a> »</li> </ul> </div> <div class="footer"> © Copyright 2007-2012, Michael Foord & the mock team. 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