---
tags: [python, pytest]
---

Fixtures are a way to provide data or state to your tests. Typically, although
not exclusively, for processes that you want to reuse accross different `test_`
functions. They are defined at the "arrange" stage of testing.

## Example: testing class methods under test

```py
class Person:
   def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name

   def print_name(self):
    return f"Your name is {self.name}"
```

To create a fixture of this class:

```py
@pytest.fixture
def my_person():
    person = new Person('Thomas')
    return person.name()

test_print_name(my_person):
    assert(my_person) == 'Thomas'

```

> Note we define our fixture and then inject it into our test function.
> Functions request fixtures they require by declaring them as arguments.

Alternatively you could just return the class from the fixture and test the
methods individually within the test function.

## Integrating with `@patch` to provide mock fixtures

Say we wanted to mock reading a JSON file.

We could create a fixture:

```py

@pytest fixture
def raw_json():
    return json.dumps({"key": "value"})
```

And pass it in to the mock of the global `open` method:

```py
from unittest.mock import mock_open, patch

def test_json_parsing(raw_json):
    with patch("builtins.open", mock_open(read_data=raw_json))
        # Then assert etc
```

This fixture could then be re-used to test any other method that relies on
incoming JSON from a file.

## Example: setup and teardown - before each and after each

Fixtures can be leveraged to setup 'before each...' and 'after each...' logic:

```py
@pytest.fixture(scope="function")
def setup():
    os.environ["POCKET_LAMBDA_ENDPOINT"] = "https://some_endpoint.com/{article_type}"
    yield
    del os.environ["POCKET_LAMBDA_ENDPOINT"]
```

Here `yield` is a placeholder for the tests that run in between the setup and
teardown.

We use `scope="function"` to signal that this will run before/after any tests
that inject the fixture.

Then to specify the units that will run as the `yield` we just inject `setup`:

```py
def some_function(setup_function):
    pass
```

## Example: setting up mocks before every test

We can combine the