How to fix TypeError: () got an unexpected keyword argument

The aim of this page📝 is to analyze the following instance of Python TypeError:

TypeError: mock_requests_delete() got an unexpected keyword argument 'headers'

I got that as my pytest unit test was failing while mocking the requests.delete function call with mock_requests_delete()s

• My unit test is as follows

""" CODE """
def request_deletion(env, schema_data):
    url = schema_data.url_dev if env == "DEV" else schema_data.url_prod
    headers = schema_data.headers_dev if env == "DEV" else schema_data.headers_prod
    res = requests.delete(url,
                          headers,
                          data=json.dumps(
                              schema_data.schema).encode("utf-8"),
                          verify=schema_data.cert_file)
    res.raise_for_status()okr
    return res
    
""" TEST """
class MockResponse:
    def __init__(self, status_code, content):
        self.status_code = status_code
        self.content = content.encode()

    def __repr__(self) -> str:
        return f"<Response [{self.status_code}]>"

def test_request_deletion_returns_res_object_with_mock_http_response(monkeypatch):
    def mock_requests_delete(_, __, ___, ____):
        return MockResponse(204, "No Content")

    with push_and_pop_path(MODULE_PATH):
        schema = schema_patcher.Schema()
        monkeypatch.setattr(
            schema_patcher_http_requestor.requests, "delete", mock_requests_delete)
        res = schema_patcher_http_requestor.request_deletion("DEV", schema)
        assert res.status_code == 204
        assert res.content.decode() == "No Content"

• The failure occurs when there are keywords arguments in the call that do not exist in the signature
• In other words

""" CALL """
requests.delete(url, 
                headers, 
                data=json.dumps(schema_data.schema).encode("utf-8"),
                verify=schema_data.cert_file)
""" SIGNATURE """
def mock_requests_delete(_, __, ___, ____): #...
                               #^^^ #^^^^
                               #!=data
                                     #!=verify

• A strict way to fix this would be to add keyword parametes and assign them a None default value

def mock_requests_delete(_, __, headers=None, verify=None):
    return MockResponse(204, "No Content")

• A quick fix is to use *args and **kwargs in the mock to be able to accept any parameter

def mock_requests_delete(*args, **kwargs):
    return MockResponse(204, "No Content")