Test and Code: pytest-mock : Mocking in pytest

Pytest-mock is currently the third most popular pytest plugin and serves as a wrapper around unittest.mock. This plugin is considered awesome due to its features and ease of use. The concept of mocking, patching, and monkey patching is discussed, along with the differences between mock, fake, spy, and stub. These concepts are essential in testing to isolate dependencies and ensure reliable test results. The history of mock in Python is also explored, including how it became unittest.mock. The unittest.mock library provides features such as patch.object and patch.object with autospec, which can be used as context managers. Pytest-mock builds upon these features with the mocker fixture, automatic cleanup in teardown, and the use of mocker.patch, mocker.spy, and mocker.stub. Pytest-mock is considered a great alternative to using unittest.mock directly due to its added features and simplicity. The plugin is also discussed in the context of pytest, the number one test framework for Python. Resources for learning pytest and pytest-mock are provided, including courses and documentation.