to_return {webmockr}

Expectation for what's returned from a stubbed request

Description

Set response status code, response body, and/or response headers

Usage

to_return(.data, ..., .list = list(), times = 1)

Arguments

.data

input. Anything that can be coerced to a StubbedRequest class object

...

Comma separated list of named variables. accepts the following: status, body, headers. See Details for more.

.list

named list, has to be one of 'status', 'body', and/or 'headers'. An alternative to passing in via .... Don't pass the same thing to both, e.g. don't pass 'status' to ..., and also 'status' to this parameter

times

(integer) number of times the given response should be returned; default: 1. value must be greater than or equal to 1. Very large values probably don't make sense, but there's no maximum value. See Details.

Details

Values for status, body, and headers:

• status: (numeric/integer) three digit status code

• body: various: character, json, list, raw, numeric, NULL, FALSE, a file connection (other connetion types not supported), or a mock_file function call (see mock_file())

• headers: (list) a named list, must be named

response headers are returned with all lowercase names and the values are all of type character. if numeric/integer values are given (e.g., to_return(headers = list(a = 10))), we'll coerce any numeric/integer values to character.

Value

an object of class StubbedRequest, with print method describing the stub

multiple to_return()

You can add more than one to_return() to a webmockr stub (including to_raise(), to_timeout()). Each one is a HTTP response returned. That is, you'll match to an HTTP request based on stub_request() and wi_th(); the first time the request is made, the first response is returned; the second time the reqeust is made, the second response is returned; and so on.

Be aware that webmockr has to track number of requests (see request_registry()), and so if you use multiple to_return() or the times parameter, you must clear the request registry in order to go back to mocking responses from the start again. webmockr_reset() clears the stub registry and the request registry, after which you can use multiple responses again (after creating your stub(s) again of course)

Raise vs. Return

to_raise() always raises a stop condition, while to_return(status=xyz) only sets the status code on the returned HTTP response object. So if you want to raise a stop condition then to_raise() is what you want. But if you don't want to raise a stop condition use to_return(). Use cases for each vary. For example, in a unit test you may have a test expecting a 503 error; in this case to_raise() makes sense. In another case, if a unit test expects to test some aspect of an HTTP response object that httr, httr2, or crul typically returns, then you'll want to_return().

Note

see more examples in stub_request()

Examples

# first, make a stub object
foo <- function() {
  stub_request("post", "https://httpbin.org/post")
}

# add status, body and/or headers
foo() %>% to_return(status = 200)
foo() %>% to_return(body = "stuff")
foo() %>% to_return(body = list(a = list(b = "world")))
foo() %>% to_return(headers = list(a = 5))
foo() %>% 
  to_return(status = 200, body = "stuff", headers = list(a = 5))

# .list - pass in a named list instead
foo() %>% to_return(.list = list(body = list(foo = "bar")))

# multiple responses using chained `to_return()`
foo() %>% to_return(body = "stuff") %>% to_return(body = "things")

# many of the same response using the times parameter
foo() %>% to_return(body = "stuff", times = 3)