Incorrectly determines mock objects are of type dict when mocking a module

[pylint-bot]

Originally reported by: Anonymous

---

Give these two files:

sut.py:

#!python

import os

def silly_function(arg):
    return os.path.exists(arg)

and test.py:

#!python

import unittest
import mock

import sut

class SillyTest(unittest.TestCase):

    def setUp(self):
        self.os_patcher = mock.patch("sut.os")
        self.os_mock = self.os_patcher.start()

    def tearDown(self):
        self.os_patcher.stop()

    def test_mock_is_mock(self):
        self.assertIsInstance(self.os_mock, mock.MagicMock)
        self.assertNotIsInstance(self.os_mock, dict)

    def test_silly_function(self):
        self.os_mock.path.exists.return_value = "hello"
        self.assertEqual("hello", sut.silly_function("world"))

The code works fine:

#!shell

$ python -m unittest -v test
test_mock_is_mock (test.SillyTest) ... ok
test_silly_function (test.SillyTest) ... ok

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 2 tests in 0.001s

OK

But pylint incorrectly determines that self.os_mock is of type dict:

#!shell

$ pylint -E test
************* Module test
E: 20, 8: Instance of 'dict' has no 'path' member (no-member)

The test_mock_is_mock test above shows that this is explicitly not the case.

This is using python 2.7.6

---

• Bitbucket: https://bitbucket.org/logilab/pylint/issue/697

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Claudiu Popa (BitBucket: PCManticore, GitHub: @PCManticore):

---

I don't think there's anyway for pylint to figure out what mock is doing behind the scene in a sane way. These kind of libraries which overuses dynamic features of the language aren't well suited for a static analysis understanding.

But this might be solvable with an astroid brain plugin.

[pylint-bot]

Original comment by Oliver Jeeves (BitBucket: ojeeves):

---

This problem only occurs when you're mocking a module. Pylint correctly finds the type of the mock if you're mocking a function, class or method.

[PCManticore]

Closing this. I think it is not worth investing effort into something relying heavily on patching things and magic, as mock is doing it. if anyone wants to spend some effort fixing this, you might have a look at how astroid brain modules are implemented (https://github.com/PyCQA/astroid/tree/master/astroid/brain)