How to mock an import

Question

Module A includes import B at its top. However under test conditions I'd like to mock B in A (mock A.B) and completely refrain from importing B.

In fact, B isn't installed in the test environment on purpose.

A is the unit under test. I have to import A with all its functionality. B is the module I need to mock. But how can I mock B within A and stop A from importing the real B, if the first thing A does is import B?

(The reason B isn't installed is that I use pypy for quick testing and unfortunately B isn't compatible with pypy yet.)

How could this be done?

Answer 1

You can assign to sys.modules['B'] before importing A to get what you want:

test.py:

import sys
sys.modules['B'] = __import__('mock_B')
import A

print(A.B.__name__)

A.py:

import B

Note B.py does not exist, but when running test.py no error is returned and print(A.B.__name__) prints mock_B. You still have to create a mock_B.py where you mock B's actual functions/variables/etc. Or you can just assign a Mock() directly:

test.py:

import sys
sys.modules['B'] = Mock()
import A