How To Create Fake Text File In Python

How can I create a fake file object in Python that contains text? I'm trying to write unit tests for a method that takes in a file object and retrieves the text via readlines() the

Solution 1:

This is exactly what StringIO/cStringIO (renamed to io.StringIO in Python 3) is for.

Solution 2:

Or you could implement it yourself pretty easily especially since all you need is readlines():

classFileSpoof:def__init__(self,my_text):
         self.my_text = my_text
     defreadlines(self):
         returnself.my_text.splitlines()

then just call it like:

somefake = FileSpoof("This is a bunch\nOf Text!")
print somefake.readlines()

That said the other answer is probably more correct.

Solution 3:

In Python3

import io
fake_file = io.StringIO("your text goes here") # takes string as arg
fake_file.read() # you can use fake_file object to do whatever you want

In Python2

import io
fake_file = io.StringIO(u"your text goes here") # takes unicode as argument
fake_file.read()  # you can use fake_file object to do whatever you want

For more info check docs here