How should I verify a log message when testing Python code under nose?

Question

I\'m trying to write a simple unit test that will verify that, under a certain condition, a class in my application will log an error via the standard logging API. I can\'t

Answer 1

Keying off @Reef's answer, I did tried the code below. It works well for me both for Python 2.7 (if you install mock) and for Python 3.4.

"""
Demo using a mock to test logging output.
"""

import logging
try:
    import unittest
except ImportError:
    import unittest2 as unittest

try:
    # Python >= 3.3
    from unittest.mock import Mock, patch
except ImportError:
    from mock import Mock, patch

logging.basicConfig()
LOG=logging.getLogger("(logger under test)")

class TestLoggingOutput(unittest.TestCase):
    """ Demo using Mock to test logging INPUT. That is, it tests what
    parameters were used to invoke the logging method, while still
    allowing actual logger to execute normally.

    """
    def test_logger_log(self):
        """Check for Logger.log call."""
        original_logger = LOG
        patched_log = patch('__main__.LOG.log',
                            side_effect=original_logger.log).start()

        log_msg = 'My log msg.'
        level = logging.ERROR
        LOG.log(level, log_msg)

        # call_args is a tuple of positional and kwargs of the last call
        # to the mocked function.
        # Also consider using call_args_list
        # See: https://docs.python.org/3/library/unittest.mock.html#unittest.mock.Mock.call_args
        expected = (level, log_msg)
        self.assertEqual(expected, patched_log.call_args[0])


if __name__ == '__main__':
    unittest.main()