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I just read the Wikipedia article on mock objects, but I'm still not entirely clear on their purpose. It appears they are objects that are created by a test framework when the actual object would be too complex or unpredictable (you know 100% sure what the values of the mock object are because you fully control them).
However, I was under the impression that all testing is done with objects of known values, so I must be missing something. For example, in a course project, we were tasked with a calendar application. Our test suite consisted of event objects that we knew exactly what they were so we could test the interactions between multiple event objects, various subsystems, and the user interface. I'm guessing these are mock objects, but I don't know why you wouldn't do this because without the objects of known values, you can't test a system.
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Only use a mock (or test double) “when testing things that cross the dependency inversion boundaries of the system” (per Bob Martin). If I truly need a test double, I go to the highest level in the class hierarchy diagram above that will get the job done. In other words, don't use a mock if a spy will do.
Mocking means creating a fake version of an external or internal service that can stand in for the real one, helping your tests run more quickly and more reliably. When your implementation interacts with an object's properties, rather than its function or behavior, a mock can be used.
All in all, mock objects have their use, but when not used carefully, they often encourage bad practices, testing implementation details, hinder refactoring and produce difficult to read and difficult to maintain tests. For some more details on shortcomings of mocks see also Mock Objects: Shortcomings and Use Cases.
It is unlikely for mocking to be applicable in unit tests, as that means there is a part of the system the unit depends on, making that unit less isolated and less subjected to unit testing. Whenever you reach out to mock things in a unit test that is a good sign you are in fact writing an integration test.
A mock object is not just an object with known values. It is an object that has the same interface as a complex object that you cannot use in test (like a database connection and result sets), but with an implementation that you can control in your test.
There are mocking frameworks that allow you to create these objects on the fly and in essence allow you to say something like: Make me an object with a method foo that takes an int and returns a bool. When I pass 0, it should return true. Then you can test the code that uses foo(), to make sure it reacts appropriately.
Martin Fowler has a great article on mocking:
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