scala - mock function and replace implementation in tests - scala

I'm using scalatest and when I test my code, I want to replace an implementation of a function to return something else when running tests.
In JavaScript its really simple and I thought I could do the same in scala.
So what I want is something like this:
object Module {
private def bar(): Int = {
5
}
def foo(): Unit = {
println(bar())
}
}
And the test will be something like that (dont mind the syntax, you get the idea)
class Test extends FunSpec {
mock(Module.bar, () => 1)
describe("Test") {
it("Test") {
Module.foo() // will print 1
}
}
}
I have searched the internet and came across scala mock libraries but none of them seemed to be able to replace the implementation of a method.
In every library you have to defined your mock in the test and pass it on to the code, but I don't want to do that.
Is there anyway to achieve this?
Thank you.

You can't mock Object in Scala, because it's like a static class in java (which you can't mock either). (and you can't mock scala objects not in mockito nor scalamock (maybe in their next version)).
But, if you change your object Module to class Module, you can mock this function easily (using mockito):
val mockModule = mock[Module]
when(mockModule.bar()).thenReturn(1)

You can do a fake class that has that function and put the value you want, if you dont want to use mocks, like this:
trait SMT{
def bar: Int
}
class RealImpl extends SMT{
def bar: Int = 5
}
class FakeImpl extends SMT{
def bar: Int = 1
}

Related

Is it possible to stub or mock a method of a class under test?

In this Scala class
class A{
def a() = {b();}
def b() = {...}
}
If I want to test a(), is it possible to mock or stub b()
Mocks override all methods (usually with return null unless explicitly stated to return something else) while here you want to override just one method. Since your class isn't final it would be easier to do something like
val tested: A = new A {
override def b = ...
}
than mock it (actually mocking final classes is also impossible without something like PowerMock)
val tested = mock[A]
(tested.b _) returning (...)
// tested.a returns null and ignores b
because mock would also override a making your tests useless. You could "fix" it by mocking a to have the same implementation as the original... but this is absurd for many reasons.
So mocking method of a tested class with a mocking framework is possible but it's getting in the way rather than helping.

How to create mock object of a class which is package private

I have a class. It has a companion object A with a factory method.
class A private[somepackage](x: Int) {
}
object A {
def createA(y: Int): A = {
new A(y)
}
}
Now I need to create the mock object of A in a scalatest file which is in a different package.
When I give
private val a = mock[A] --> I get compilation error.
constructor A in class A cannot be accessed in <<somewhere>>.
Is there a better way to mock the object ??
In your test sources, create a test double in the same package:
package somepackage
class MockableA extends A(0)
then just create a mock[MockableA] in your tests and continue as usual.
But the answer with a proxy/facade should work too if you are willing to change production sources to facilitate tests.
Consider using a proxy to access class A, and stub/mock that proxy class instead.
E.g., if A.doStuff is what you want to mock/stub, and A.accessStuff is what you need in your code, create a class
class ADecorated(underlying: A) {
def doStuff() {
underlying.doStuff()
// whatever I want to do
}
def accessStuff() {
x = underlying.accessStuff()
// do something else and return
}
// Any other method you want to use
}
Replace usage of A.createA with new ADecorated(A.createA()). ADecorated is what you work with now

Is it possible to mock / override dependencies / imports in Scala?

I have some code looking like this:
package org.samidarko.actors
import org.samidarko.helpers.Lib
class Monitoring extends Actor {
override def receive: Receive = {
case Tick =>
Lib.sendNotification()
}
}
Is there a way to mock/stub Lib from ScalaTest like with proxyquire for nodejs?
I read that I could use dependency injection but I would rather not do that
Is my only alternative is to pass my lib as class parameter?
class Monitoring(lib: Lib) extends Actor {
Any advice to make it more testable? Thanks
EDIT:
Xavier Guihot's answer is an interesting approach of the problem but I choose to change the code for testing purpose.
I'm passing the Lib as parameter and I'm mocking with mockito, it makes the code easier to test and to maintain than shadowing the scope.
This answer only uses scalatest and doesn't impact the source code:
Basic solution:
Let's say you have this src class (the one you want to test and for which you want to mock the dependency):
package com.my.code
import com.lib.LibHelper
class MyClass() {
def myFunction(): String = LibHelper.help()
}
and this library dependency (which you want to mock / override when testing MyClass):
package com.lib
object LibHelper {
def help(): String = "hello world"
}
The idea is to create a class in your test folder which will override/shadow the library. The class will have the same name and the same package as the one you want to mock. In src/test/scala/com/external/lib, you can create LibHelper.scala which contains this code:
package com.lib
object LibHelper {
def help(): String = "hello world - overriden"
}
And this way you can test your code the usual way:
package com.my.code
import org.scalatest.FunSuite
class MyClassTest extends FunSuite {
test("my_test") {
assert(new MyClass().myFunction() === "hello world - overriden")
}
}
Improved solution which allows setting the behavior of the mock for each test:
Previous code is clear and simple but the mocked behavior of LibHelper is the same for all tests. And one might want to have a method of LibHelper produce different outputs. We can thus consider setting a mutable variable in the LibHelper and updating the variable before each test in order to set the desired behavior of LibHelper. (This only works if LibHelper is an object)
The shadowing LibHelper (the one in src/test/scala/com/external/lib) should be replaced with:
package com.lib
object LibHelper {
var testName = "test_1"
def help(): String =
testName match {
case "test_1" => "hello world - overriden - test 1"
case "test_2" => "hello world - overriden - test 2"
}
}
And the scalatest class should become:
package com.my.code
import com.lib.LibHelper
import org.scalatest.FunSuite
class MyClassTest extends FunSuite {
test("test_1") {
LibHelper.testName = "test_1"
assert(new MyClass().myFunction() === "hello world - overriden - test 1")
}
test("test_2") {
LibHelper.testName = "test_2"
assert(new MyClass().myFunction() === "hello world - overriden - test 2")
}
}
Very important precision, since we're using a global variable, it is compulsory to force scalatest to run test in sequence (not in parallel). The associated scalatest option (to be included in build.sbt) is:
parallelExecution in Test := false
Not a complete answer (as I don't know AOP very well), but to put you in the right direction, this is possible through Java lib called AspectJ:
https://blog.jayway.com/2007/02/16/static-mock-using-aspectj/
https://www.cakesolutions.net/teamblogs/2013/08/07/aspectj-with-akka-scala
Example in pseudocode (without going into details):
class Mock extends MockAspect {
#Pointcut("execution (* org.samidarko.helpers.Lib.sendNotification(..))")
def intercept() {...}
}
The low level basics of this approach are Dynamic Proxies: https://dzone.com/articles/java-dynamic-proxy. However, you can mock static methods too (maybe you'll have to add word static into the pattern).

Mockito for Objects in Scala

I'm using Scala 2.10, specs2 and Mockito. I want to mock scala.io.Source.fromURL(). The issue seems to be fromURL() is a function in io.Source's object.
val m = mock[io.Source]
m.fromURL returns io.Source.fromString("Some random string.")
It's a pretty straightforward mock in an Unit test. Why isn't it working?
Thanks!
Instead of mocking it, you could try spying it as follows:
val m = spy(io.Source)
Or you could mock it as follows:
val m = mock[io.Source.type]
But then how are you using Source in the class you are testing? If you had an example class like so:
class MyClass{
def foo = {
io.Source.doSomething //I know doSomething is not on Source, call not important
}
}
Then in order to take advantage of mocking/spying, you'd have to structure your class like so:
class MyClass{
val source = io.Source
def foo = {
source.doSomething
}
}
And then your test would have to look something like this:
val mockSource = mock[io.Source.type]
val toTest = new MyClass{
override val source = mockSource
}
In the Java world, static methods are the bane of mocking. In the Scala world, calls to objects can also be troublesome to deal with for unit tests. But if you follow the code above, you should be able to properly mock out an object based dependency in your class.
Good news! With the latest 1.16 release of mockito-scala, you can now mock scala objects.
To enable withObjectMocked feature, it is mandatory to create the file src/test/resources/mockito-extensions/org.mockito.plugins.MockMaker containing a single line:
mock-maker-inline
Example:
object FooObject {
def simpleMethod: String = "not mocked!"
}
"mock" should {
"stub an object method" in {
FooObject.simpleMethod shouldBe "not mocked!"
withObjectMocked[FooObject.type] {
FooObject.simpleMethod returns "mocked!"
//or
when(FooObject.simpleMethod) thenReturn "mocked!"
FooObject.simpleMethod shouldBe "mocked!"
}
FooObject.simpleMethod shouldBe "not mocked!"
}
}
See: https://github.com/mockito/mockito-scala#mocking-scala-object
Years later, above answer doesn't work as others have pointed out.
And you cannot mock the scala.io.Source object.
Can I mock final / private methods or classes? This is not supported, as mocks generated with macros are implemented as subclasses of the type to mock. So private and final methods cannot be overridden. You may want to try using an adapter or façade in your code to make it testable. It is better to test against a trait/interface instead of a concrete implementation. There are libraries that support this kind of mocking, such as PowerMock. Be aware that this kind of mocking involves Bytecode manipulation, which has the risk that your test double diverges from the actual implementation.
So what I did is an work around to abstract out scala.io.Source.fromUrl() as a function argument and pass in mocked function in tests.
// original func
def aFuncThatUsesSource() = {
val source = scala.io.Source("127.0.0.1:8080/...")
val result = source.mkString
Try(source.close())
result
}
// test friendly func that accepts `scala.io.Source.fromURL` as arg
def aTestFriendlyFunc(makeApiCall: String => BufferedSource) = {
val source = makeApiCall("127.0.0.1:8080/...")
val result = source.mkString
Try(source.close())
result
}
....
// test spec
def testyMcTesterson = () => {
val makeApiCall = mockFunction[String, BufferedSource]
makeApiCall.expects("something...")
.returns( new BufferedSource(new ByteArrayInputStream("returns something".getBytes)) )
aTestFriendlyFunc(makeApiCall) shouldEqual "returns something"
}

How to implement intermediate types for implicit methods?

Assume I want to offer method foo on existing type A outside of my control. As far as I know, the canonical way to do this in Scala is implementing an implicit conversion from A to some type that implements foo. Now I basically see two options.
Define a separate, maybe even hidden class for the purpose:
protected class Fooable(a : A) {
def foo(...) = { ... }
}
implicit def a2fooable(a : A) = new Fooable(a)
Define an anonymous class inline:
implicit def a2fooable(a : A) = new { def foo(...) = { ... } }
Variant 2) is certainly less boilerplate, especially when lots of type parameters happen. On the other hand, I think it should create more overhead since (conceptually) one class per conversion is created, as opposed to one class globally in 1).
Is there a general guideline? Is there no difference, because compiler/VM get rid of the overhead of 2)?
Using a separate class is better for performance, as the alternative uses reflection.
Consider that
new { def foo(...) = { ... } }
is really
new AnyRef { def foo(...) = { ... } }
Now, AnyRef doesn't have a method foo. In Scala, this type is actually AnyRef { def foo(...): ... }, which, if you remove AnyRef, you should recognize as a structural type.
At compile time, this time can be passed back and forth, and everywhere it will be known that the method foo is callable. However, there's no structural type in the JVM, and to add an interface would require a proxy object, which would cause some problems such as breaking referential equality (ie, an object would not be equal with a structural type version of itself).
The way found around that was to use cached reflection calls for structural types.
So, if you want to use the Pimp My Library pattern for any performance-sensitive application, declare a class.
I believe 1 and 2 get compiled to the same bytecode (except for the class name that gets generated in case 2).
If Fooable exists only for you to be able to convert implicitly A to Fooable (and you're never going to directly create and use a Fooable), then I would go with option 2.
However, if you control A (meaning A is not a java library class that you can't subclass) I would consider using a trait instead of implicit conversions to add behaviour to A.
UPDATE:
I have to reconsider my answer. I would use variant 1 of your code, because variant 2 turns out to be using reflection (scala 2.8.1 on Linux).
I compiled these two versions of the same code, decompiled them to java with jd-gui and here are the results:
source code with named class
class NamedClass { def Foo : String = "foo" }
object test {
implicit def StrToFooable(a: String) = new NamedClass
def main(args: Array[String]) { println("bar".Foo) }
}
source code with anonymous class
object test {
implicit def StrToFooable(a: String) = new { def Foo : String = "foo" }
def main(args: Array[String]) { println("bar".Foo) }
}
compiled and decompiled to java with java-gui. The "named" version generates a NamedClass.class that gets decompiled to this java:
public class NamedClass
implements ScalaObject
{
public String Foo()
{
return "foo";
}
}
the anonymous generates a test$$anon$1 class that gets decompiled to the following java
public final class test$$anon$1
{
public String Foo()
{
return "foo";
}
}
so almost identical, except for the anonymous being "final" (they apparently want to make extra sure you won't get out of your way to try and subclass an anonymous class...)
however at the call site I get this java for the "named" version
public void main(String[] args)
{
Predef..MODULE$.println(StrToFooable("bar").Foo());
}
and this for the anonymous
public void main(String[] args) {
Object qual1 = StrToFooable("bar"); Object exceptionResult1 = null;
try {
exceptionResult1 = reflMethod$Method1(qual1.getClass()).invoke(qual1, new Object[0]);
Predef..MODULE$.println((String)exceptionResult1);
return;
} catch (InvocationTargetException localInvocationTargetException) {
throw localInvocationTargetException.getCause();
}
}
I googled a little and found that others have reported the same thing but I haven't found any more insight as to why this is the case.