What are the best practices for mocking APIs in Python?

What are the best practices for mocking APIs in Python?

When mocking APIs in Python, it's important to use libraries like unittest.mock or responses. These tools help you simulate API responses without making actual network calls.

Can you give me an example of how to use unittest.mock for this?

Sure! You can use unittest.mock.patch to replace the API call with a mock object. Here's a simple example:

from unittest.mock import patch

@patch('module_containing_api_call.requests.get')
def test_api_call(mock_get):
    mock_get.return_value.status_code = 200
    mock_get.return_value.json.return_value = {'key': 'value'}
    response = your_function_that_calls_api()
    assert response == {'key': 'value'}

What about using the responses library?

The responses library is great for mocking HTTP requests. You can use it like this:

import responses

@responses.activate
def test_api_call():
    responses.add(responses.GET, 'http://api.example.com/data', json={'key': 'value'}, status=200)
    response = your_function_that_calls_api()
    assert response == {'key': 'value'}