What are the advantages and disadvantages of using monkey patching in code?

Monkey patching is the dynamic modification or extension of code at runtime, such as replacing methods or functions in classes.

Advantages:

• Allows quick bug fixes or adding functionality without changing the original source code.
• Convenient for testing and mocking.
• Can be used to adapt third-party libraries to your needs.

Disadvantages:

• Reduces code readability and maintainability, as changes are not obvious.
• Can lead to conflicts if multiple parts of the code modify the same thing.
• Difficult to debug due to dynamic changes.

Example:

import some_module

def new_function():
    print("Patching done")

some_module.old_function = new_function  # replace the function