Workaround for conflict of unittest with metaclass. mock manually

.github/workflows/docs.yml

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Install dependencies
         run: |
           sudo apt install pandoc
-          pip install sphinx sphinx_rtd_theme nbsphinx
+          pip install sphinx sphinx_rtd_theme nbsphinx mock
       - name: Sphinx build
         run: |
           make -C docs html

docs/conf.py

@@ -67,6 +67,15 @@
                         'tqdm',
                         'scipy']
 
+# There seems to be a conflict between unittest.mock (used by sphinx) and metaclasses
+# The cosipy.threeml.custom_functions.Band_Eflux includes a metaclass from
+# astromodels.functions.function, so we mock that one manually with the mock package
+import mock
+
+MOCK_MODULES = ['astromodels.functions.function']
+for mod_name in MOCK_MODULES:
+    sys.modules[mod_name] = mock.Mock()
+
 # intersphinx for mocked dependencies
 
 intersphinx_mapping = {

docs/install.rst

@@ -31,9 +31,9 @@ You can install ``pytest`` and ``pytest-cov`` with::
 Compiling the docs
 ------------------
 
-You need pandoc, sphinx, nbsphinx and sphinx_rtd_theme. Using conda::
+You need pandoc, sphinx, nbsphinx, sphinx_rtd_theme and mock. Using conda::
 
-    conda install -c conda-forge pandoc nbsphinx sphinx_rtd_theme
+    conda install -c conda-forge pandoc nbsphinx sphinx_rtd_theme mock
 
 Onece you have this requirements, run::