Programming a web API with test driven development

Question

I'm creating a web API in Python which communicates with some other web API's (Facebook, twitter, etc) en a other web API which is programmed at the same time as my API.

Since I like to use test driven development, I wonder how I can apply TDD to my web API. I know about mocking but how can I mock other API's and how can I mock calls to my API.

Update 1: To specify my question. Is it possible to create a web API with TDD under the conditions specified above. If yes, is there a library I can use in Python to do so.

Welcome to Stack Overflow! I'm sorry, but I think your question is too vague and overly broad to be answered here on SO; see the [FAQ#dontask]. If you have more concrete problems (preferably involving some code), feel free to ask those! — Martijn Pieters, Jun 01 '13 at 14:44

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

Since your question is rather broad, I'll just refer you:

for mocking in python there is a library called Mock, documentation is pretty detailed
Python Unit Testing with Mock
What is your favorite Python mocking library?

Here's a simple example of using mock to mock python-twitter's GetSearch method:

test_module.py

import twitter


def get_tweets(hashtag):
    api = twitter.Api(consumer_key='consumer_key',
                      consumer_secret='consumer_secret',
                      access_token_key='access_token',
                      access_token_secret='access_token_secret')
    api.VerifyCredentials()
    results = api.GetSearch(hashtag)
    return results

test_my_module.py

from unittest import TestCase
from mock import patch
import twitter
from my_module import get_tweets


class MyTestCase(TestCase):
    def test_ok(self):
        with patch.object(twitter.Api, 'GetSearch') as search_method:
            search_method.return_value = [{'tweet1', 'tweet2'}]

            self.assertEqual(get_tweets('blabla'), [{'tweet1', 'tweet2'}])

You probably should mock the whole Api object in your unittests in order to still call them unit tests. Hope that helps.

Thank you i can figure it out from here. – Kickstarter Jun 03 '13 at 16:01 — Kickstarter, Jun 03 '13 at 16:01

Programming a web API with test driven development

1 Answers1