Should one override equals method for asserting the object equality in a unit test?

Question

Let\'s say we are testing the result of a method by asserting the equality of all the properties of the result object with properties of an expected result object. Should w

Answer 1

If you're testing the return value of a method or function that returns a value object (say, a currency value, or a tuple or map), then it makes sense to check that the result object is equal to an expected result object. In this case, the standard implementation of equals should do what you want.

Meanwhile, if you're calling a mutator on some object and then checking that it mutated the object as expected, I think it'd make more sense to check only those properties of the objects that ought to have been changed. This prevents you from having to make a custom definition of equals, which anyway would obscure what you expected to have happened in the test.