Expand description
unimock is a library for defining mock implementations of traits.
Mocking, in a broad sense, is a way to control API behaviour during test execution.
The uni in unimock indicates one-ness: All mockable traits are implemented by a single type, Unimock. This design allows for a great flexibility in coding style, as will be demonstrated further down.
The first code example is the smallest possible use of unimock:
use unimock::*;
#[unimock]
trait Foo {}
fn takes_foo(foo: impl Foo) {}
takes_foo(mock(None));trait Foois declared with a#[unimock]annotation which makes its behaviour mockable.fn takes_fooaccepts some type that implements the trait. This function adheres to zero-cost Inversion of Control/Dependency Inversion.- A mock instantiation by calling
mock(None), which returns a Unimock value which is passed intotakes_foo.
The mock() function takes an argument, in this case the value None. The argument is what behaviour are we mocking, in this case None at all!
Foo contains no methods, so there is no behaviour to mock.
Methods and behaviour mocking
In order to be somewhat useful, the traits we abstract over should contain some methods. In a unit test for some function, we’d like to mock the behaviour of that function’s dependencies (expressed as trait bounds).
mock() accepts a collection of Clauses. Clauses carry the full recipe on how Unimock will behave once instantiated.
Given some trait,
#[unimock]
trait Foo {
fn foo(&self) -> i32;
}we would like to tell unimock what Foo::foo’s behaviour will be, i.e. what it will return. In order to do that, we first need to refer to the method.
In Rust, trait methods aren’t reified entities, they are not types nor values, so they cannot be referred to in code.
Therefore, the unimock macro creates a surrogate type to represent it. By default, this type will be called
Foo__foo.
This type will implement MockFn, which is the entrypoint for creating clauses:
#[unimock]
trait Foo {
fn foo(&self) -> i32;
}
fn test_me(foo: impl Foo) -> i32 {
foo.foo()
}
let clause = Foo__foo::each_call(matching!()).returns(1337).in_any_order();
assert_eq!(1337, test_me(mock(Some(clause))));Clause construction is a type-state machine that in this example goes through 3 steps:
Foo__foo::each_call(matching!()): Define a call pattern. Each call toFoo::foothat matches the empty argument list (i.e. always matching, since the method is paremeter-less).returs(1337): Each matching call will return the value1337.in_any_order(): this directive describes how the resulting Clause behaves in relation to other clauses in the behaviour description, and returns it. In this example there is only one clause.
Call patterns (matching inputs)
It is common to want to control how a function will respond in relation to what input is given to it! Inputs are matched by a function that receives the inputs as a tuple, and returns whether it matched as a bool. A specific MockFn together with an input matcher is referred to as a call pattern from now on.
The matching macro provides syntax sugar for argument matching. It has a syntax inspired by the std::matches macro.
Inputs being matched is a condition that needs to be fulfilled in order for the rest of the call pattern to be evaluated.
Specifying outputs
Specifying outputs can be done in several ways. The simplest one is returns(something). Different ways of specifying outputs are
found in build::Match.
Combining clauses
mock() accepts as argument anything that can be converted to a clause iterator, so that you can specify more that one kind of behaviour! An iterator has a specific order of items, and sometimes the order of clauses matters too. It will depend on the type of clause.
Other mocking libraries often have distinctions between several kinds of “test doubles”. Terminology varies. Unimock uses this terminology:
- Mock: A test double where every valid interaction must be declared up front.
- Spy: A test double which behaves as release code, unless behaviour is overridden.
- Stub: Defined behaviour for a single function, where the order of calls does not matter.
Now that terminology is in place for unimock, let’s look at various ways to combine clauses.
#[unimock]
trait Foo {
fn foo(&self, arg: i32) -> i32;
}
#[unimock]
trait Bar {
fn bar(&self, arg: i32) -> i32;
}
fn test_me(deps: &(impl Foo + Bar), arg: i32) -> i32 {
deps.bar(deps.foo(arg))
}
assert_eq!(
42,
test_me(
&mock([
Foo__foo::each_call(matching!(_))
.answers(|arg| arg * 3)
.in_any_order(),
Bar__bar::each_call(matching!((arg) if *arg > 20))
.answers(|arg| arg * 2)
.in_any_order(),
]),
7
)
);
// alternatively, define _stubs_ for each method.
// This is a nice way to group methods by introducing a closure scope:
assert_eq!(
42,
test_me(
&mock([
Foo__foo::stub(|each| {
each.call(matching!(1337)).returns(1024);
each.call(matching!(_)).answers(|arg| arg * 3);
}),
Bar__bar::stub(|each| {
each.call(matching!((arg) if *arg > 20)).answers(|arg| arg * 2);
}),
]),
7
)
);In both these examples, the order in which the clauses are specified do not matter, except for input matching. In order for unimock to find the correct response, call patterns will be matched in the sequence they were defined.
Interaction verifications
Unimock has one built-in verification that is always enabled:
Every MockFn that is introduced in some clause, must be called at least once.
If this requirement is not met, Unimock will panic inside its Drop implementation. The reason is to help avoiding “bit rot” accumulating over time inside test code. When refactoring release code, tests should always follow along and not be overly generic.
Every unimock verification happens automatically in Unimock::drop.
Optional call count expectations in call patterns
To make a call count expectation for a specific call pattern, look at build::QuantifyResponse, which
has methods like once(), n_times(n) and at_least_times(n).
With exact quantification in place, we can produce output sequences by chaining output definitions:
each.call(matching!(_)).returns(1).n_times(2).then().returns(2);The output sequence will be [1, 1, 2, 2, 2, ..]. A call pattern like this is expected to be called at least 3 times.
2 times because of the first exact output sequence, then at least one time because of the .then() combinator.
Verifying exact sequence of calls
Exact call sequences may be expressed using strictly ordered clauses. Use MockFn::next_call to define a call pattern, and build::QuantifiedResponse::in_order to make it into a clause.
mock([
Foo_foo::next_call(matching!(3)).returns(5).once().in_order(),
Bar_bar::next_call(matching!(8)).returns(7).n_times(2).in_order(),
]);Order-sensitive clauses and order-insensitive clauses (like ::stub) do not interfere with each other.
However, these kinds of clauses cannot be combined for the same MockFn in a single Unimock value.
Application architecture
Writing larger, testable applications with unimock requires some degree of architectural discipline. We already know how to specify dependencies using trait bounds. But would this scale in practice when several layers are involved? One of the main features of unimock is that all traits are implemented by Unimock. This means that trait bounds can be composed, and we can use one value that implements all our dependencies:
fn some_function(deps: &(impl A + B + C), arg: i32) {
// ..
}In a way, this function resembles a self-receiving function. The deps argument is how the function
abstracts over its dependencies. Let’s keep this call convention and let it scale a bit by introducing two layers:
use std::any::Any;
trait A {
fn a(&self, arg: i32) -> i32;
}
trait B {
fn b(&self, arg: i32) -> i32;
}
fn a(deps: &impl B, arg: i32) -> i32 {
deps.b(arg) + 1
}
fn b(deps: &impl Any, arg: i32) -> i32 {
arg + 1
}The dependency from fn a to fn b is completely abstracted away, and in test mode
the deps: &impl X gets substituted with deps: &Unimock. Unimock is only concerned with the
testing side of the picture. To wire all of this together to a full-fledged runtime solution
without too much boilerplate, reach for the entrait pattern.
Combining release code and mocks: Spying
Unimock can be used to create arbitrarily deep integration tests, mocking away layers only indirectly used. For that to work, unimock needs to know how to call the “real” implementation of traits.
See the documentation of Unmock and spy to see how this works.
Although this can be implemented with unimock directly, it works best with a higher-level macro like entrait.
Misc
Unimock works best with high-level abstractions over function calls. It does not work that well with generic traits or traits with associated types.
Modules
Types used for building and defining mock behaviour.
APIs used by macros, not intended to be used directly.
Traits and types used for describing the properties of various mock types.
Macros
Macro to ease argument pattern matching. This macro produces a closure expression suitable for passing to build::Each::call.
Structs
A clause from which unimock instances are created.
Unimock’s purpose is to be an implementor of downstream traits via mock objects. A single mock object provides the implementation of a single trait method.
Traits
The main trait used for unimock configuration.