How can I mock external services in Flask for testing?

How can I mock external services in Flask for testing?

You can use libraries like unittest.mock or responses to mock external API calls in your Flask tests.

Can you show me a simple example using unittest.mock?

Sure! You can use patch to replace the external service call with a mock. Here's a quick example:

from unittest.mock import patch

@patch('your_module.requests.get')
def test_your_function(mock_get):
    mock_get.return_value.status_code = 200
    mock_get.return_value.json.return_value = {'key': 'value'}
    # Call your function that makes the request here

What about using the responses library?

With responses, you can easily mock HTTP responses. Here's how:

import responses

@responses.activate
def test_your_function():
    responses.add(responses.GET, 'http://external-service.com/api', json={'key': 'value'}, status=200)
    # Call your function that makes the request here

Are there any best practices for mocking in tests?

Yes! Always mock only what you need, keep tests isolated, and ensure your mocks reflect realistic scenarios.