Python - object MagicMock can't be used in 'await' expression

Question

When I was trying to mock an async function in unittest with MagicMock, I got this exception:

TypeError: object MagicMock can\'t be used in \'await\' expr

Answer 1

I found this comment very useful when trying to await a mock object in Python < 3.8. You simply create a child class AsyncMock that inherits from MagicMock and overwrites a __call__ method to be a coroutine:

class AsyncMock(MagicMock):
    async def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        return super(AsyncMock, self).__call__(*args, **kwargs)

Then, inside your test, do:

@pytest.mark.asyncio
async def test_my_method():
    # Test "my_method" coroutine by injecting an async mock
    my_mock = AsyncMock()
    assert await my_method(my_mock)

you might also want to install pytest-asyncio

Answer 2

In python 3.8+ you can make use of the AsyncMock

async def test_that_mock_can_be_awaited():
   mock = AsyncMock()
   mock.x.return_value = 123
   result = await mock.x()
   assert result == 123

The class AsyncMock object will behave so the object is recognized as an async function, and the result of a call is an awaitable.

>>> mock = AsyncMock()
>>> asyncio.iscoroutinefunction(mock)
True
>>> inspect.isawaitable(mock())
True

Answer 3

I ended up with this hack.

# monkey patch MagicMock
async def async_magic():
    pass

MagicMock.__await__ = lambda x: async_magic().__await__()

It only works for MagicMock, not other pre-defined return_value

Answer 4

You can get mocks to return objects that can be awaited by using a Future. The following is a pytest test case, but something similar should be possible with unittest.

async def test_that_mock_can_be_awaited():
    mock = MagicMock(return_value=Future())
    mock.return_value.set_result(123)
    result = await mock()
    assert result == 123

In your case, since you're patching Service (which gets passed in as mock), mock.return_value = Future() should do the trick.

Answer 5

shaun shia provided really good universal solution, but i found what in python 3.8 you can use just @patch('__main__.Service', new=AsyncMock)