autospecced namedtuples should be truthy by default

[skrisman]

BPO	19016
Nosy	@voidspace, @tirkarthi
Files	namedtuple_truthiness.patch namedtuple_truthiness_2.patch

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = 'https://github.com/voidspace'
closed_at = None
created_at = <Date 2013-09-14.09:36:45.407>
labels = ['type-bug', 'library']
title = 'autospecced namedtuples should be truthy by default'
updated_at = <Date 2020-07-28.05:11:43.697>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/skrisman'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2020-07-28.05:11:43.697>
actor = 'xtreak'
assignee = 'michael.foord'
closed = False
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['Library (Lib)']
creation = <Date 2013-09-14.09:36:45.407>
creator = 'skrisman'
dependencies = []
files = ['31755', '31875']
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 19016
keywords = ['patch']
message_count = 5.0
messages = ['197698', '197889', '197913', '198433', '198486']
nosy_count = 4.0
nosy_names = ['michael.foord', 'python-dev', 'skrisman', 'xtreak']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = None
stage = None
status = 'open'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue19016'
versions = ['Python 3.4']

[skrisman]

import mock
from collections import namedtuple

Foo = namedtuple('Foo', bar)
mock_foo = mock.create_autospec(Foo)

if mock_foo:
    print('the namedtuple is truthy')
else:
    print('the namedtuple is not truthy')

The expected behavior is that it should print "the namedtuple is truthy." Instead it prints "the namedtuple is not truthy." Almost all namedtuples are truthy, the exception being the nearly useless namedtuple with 0 fields. The problem stems from the fact that tuples have a __len__ defined which is what is used derive truthiness. MagicMocks define __len__ to be zero by default. Workarounds to the problem are very difficult because you cannot simply define __len__ to be a nonzero number and have the mock work correctly.

In general MagicMock has defaults that encourage the mocks to be very truthy all around:

__bool__ -- True
__int__ -- 1
__complex__ -- 1j
__float__ -- 1.0
__index__ -- 1

So it was interesting to me to find out that __len__ was defined to be 0. The fix that I am proposing is to make 1 the new default for __len__. I believe this is a more useful default in general because an instance of a class with a __len__ attribute will likely be truthy far more often then not.

There are of course backwards compatibility issues to consider here, however I don't think many people are assuming this behavior. Certainly nobody in the python code base.

[voidspace]

The problem is that the change you're proposing is backwards incompatible. Code using MagicMock and objects with length will break.

[skrisman]

Yeah in my head I was thinking it would affect relatively few people who depended on the change, but it's definitely hard to prove that!

How about a change that special cases namedtuple?

[skrisman]

This fix is actually backwards compatible. This is a more powerful patch too because not only does it provide a better default for truthiness, but it also provides a better default for length. I also fixed a spelling mistake involving the word "calculate".

[voidspace]

I dislike adding namedtuple specific code to mock. How many different types should we special case here and in other places?

[devdanzin]

This is stale and was not well received, so setting to pending.