I'm my own grandpa.

A fellow Pythonaut had a simple problem...
How to test code with dependencies on the date?  Specifically, a Django project with models that have DateTimeFields with auto_now=True.

The chosen approach was to monkey-patch datetime.date.today() in order to return a constant value.
The first snag: datetime.date is a C class.  This means it is not monkey-patchable.

This can be solved by monkey-patching the entire datetime.date class.  The most straightforward thing to replace datetime.date with is a new subclass of datetime.date, whose only change is to override the today() function.

The second problem: there are now two kinds of datetime.date's floating around the system.  Those by datetime.date.today(), and those created by every other function, which being C code will still return the same class.

Specifically, DateTimeField validates isinstance(data, datetime.date) before saving to the database.

A class which is simultaneously a super and subclass of datetime.date is required.
Override __subclasshook__ so that isinstance(super(datetime.date)(), datetime.date) is True.

>>> class DateProxy(datetime.date):
...    __metaclass__ = abc.ABCMeta
...    @classmethod
...    def __subclasshook__(cls, C): return True
...    @classmethod
...    def today(cls): return datetime.date(2011,9,20)
...
>>> datetime.date = DateProxy


In other words, the superclass is also a subclass.  The parent of the parent being the grandparent, this class is it's own grandpa.