`mock.patch(..., autospec=True)` on a `functools.partialmethod` attribute produces a completely uncallable mock
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Description
Bug report
Bug description:
Autospeccing a class attribute that is a functools.partialmethod (either via mock.patch.object(cls, name, autospec=True) or mock.create_autospec(cls, ...) combined with a direct
mock.patch.object on that one attribute) produces a unittest.mock.NonCallableMagicMock. Calling it then raises TypeError: 'NonCallableMagicMock' object is not callable, even though the real attribute is perfectly callable (instance.method(...) works fine on the un-mocked class).
import functools
from unittest import mock
class Client:
def _send_request(self, method, url):
return method, url
_send_post_request = functools.partialmethod(_send_request, "POST")
with mock.patch.object(Client, "_send_post_request", autospec=True) as m:
print(type(m)) # <class 'unittest.mock.NonCallableMagicMock'>
client = Client()
client._send_post_request("https://example.com")
# TypeError: 'NonCallableMagicMock' object is not callable
Root cause:
_patch.get_original() (Lib/unittest/mock.py) reads the attribute via target.__dict__[name] first, deliberately bypassing the descriptor protocol (this is needed to support patching descriptors like @property correctly). For a functools.partialmethod attribute, this yields the
raw partialmethod instance rather than the bound-callable object that getattr(instance, name) would produce.
functools.partialmethod objects are not themselves callable (they have no __call__; only __get__, since they are non-data descriptors meant to be resolved through attribute access):
>>> import functools, inspect
>>> p = functools.partialmethod(lambda self, a: None, 1)
>>> callable(p)
False
>>> inspect.signature(p)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
TypeError: functools.partialmethod(<function <lambda> at 0x...>, 1, ) is not a callable object
CPython versions tested on:
3.12, but tested on main as well.
Operating systems tested on:
Linux
Linked PRs
- gh-153582
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
The issue identifies Lib/unittest/mock.py and _patch.get_original(); start by running the partialmethod reproduction and tracing how autospec handles the raw descriptor. Done means patching the attribute with autospec produces a callable mock and the shown client call no longer raises TypeError, with regression coverage for the case.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- testing
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Clearly specified
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100