Trying to mock datetime.date.today(), but not working

Question

Can anyone tell me why this isn't working?

>>> import mock
>>> @mock.patch('datetime.date.today')
... def today(cls):
...  return date(2010, 1, 1)
...
>>> from datetime import date
>>> date.today()
datetime.date(2010, 12, 19)

Perhaps someone could suggest a better way?

Answer 1

Another option is to use https://github.com/spulec/freezegun/

Install it:

pip install freezegun

And use it:

from freezegun import freeze_time

@freeze_time("2012-01-01")
def test_something():

    from datetime import datetime
    print(datetime.now()) #  2012-01-01 00:00:00

    from datetime import date
    print(date.today()) #  2012-01-01

It also affects other datetime calls in method calls from other modules:

other_module.py:

from datetime import datetime

def other_method():
    print(datetime.now())    

main.py:

from freezegun import freeze_time

@freeze_time("2012-01-01")
def test_something():

    import other_module
    other_module.other_method()

And finally:

$ python main.py
# 2012-01-01