Compare scala.xml.Elem object in unit test

Question

I have two scala.xml.Elem objects (actual, expected). I am using JUnit 4, but have also included XMLUnit 1.3.

Is there any easy way to compare the two objec

Answer 1

If you want to compare to XML Elem objects ignoring whitespaces you can remove the whitespaces from them with scala.xml.Utility.trim method.

scala> val a = bar
a: scala.xml.Elem = bar

scala> val b =    bar   
b: scala.xml.Elem =    bar   

scala> a == b
res8: Boolean = false

scala> import scala.xml.Utility.trim
import scala.xml.Utility.trim

scala> trim(a) == trim(b)
res9: Boolean = true

Scala does not care about the order of the attributes if you use XML literals:

scala> val a = 
a: scala.xml.Elem = 

scala> val b = 
b: scala.xml.Elem = 

scala> a == b
res22: Boolean = true

I would recommend ScalaTest for unit testing there you have the ShouldMatchers:

// Scala repl started with scalatest-1.2.jar in the classpath

scala> val a = bar
a: scala.xml.Elem = bar

scala> val b = bar
b: scala.xml.Elem = bar

scala> a should equal(b)

scala> val b = bar2
b: scala.xml.Elem = bar2

scala> a should equal(b)
org.scalatest.TestFailedException: bar did not equal bar2
    at org.scalatest.matchers.Matchers$class.newTestFailedException(Matchers.scala:148)
    at org.scalatest.matchers.ShouldMatchers$.newTestFailedException(ShouldMatchers.scala:2329)
    at org.scalatest.matchers.ShouldMatchers$ShouldMethodHelper$.shouldMatcher(ShouldMatchers.scala:871)
    at org.scalatest.matchers.ShouldMatchers$SeqShouldWrapper.should(ShouldMatchers.scala:1724)
    at .(:15)
    at .()
    at RequestResult$.(:9)
    at RequestResult$.()
    at RequestResult$scala_repl_result()
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.Delega...