java - Test two instances of object are equal JUnit

Question

(This question already has answers here): question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/27605714/test-two-instances-of-object-are-equal-junit

Answer 1

Think about exactly what it is you're trying to achieve. Do you want to test object identity or verify that the two objects have exactly the same data? From your suggestion of assertEquals I am guessing you want to go field-by-field.

If the objects are shallow you can use

assertThat(actual, samePropertyValuesAs(expected));

This fails when the object is a composite though. If you want to walk the entire graph you can use the sameBeanAs matcher we wrote some time back to address this issue:

assertThat(actual, sameBeanAs(expected));

If you're using AssertJ then you can also use the built-in functionality like this:

assertThat(actual).isEqualToComparingFieldByField(expected);

One thing you don't want to do it override the equals method for this as that might change in the future to accommodate business need.