From: Gavin Sinclair <gsinclair@...>
Date: 2003-02-26T17:03:32+09:00
Subject: Re: Comparing strings and integers in Test::Unit

On Tuesday, February 25, 2003, 3:16:58 AM, Paul wrote:

> It's not immediately obvious why <10> is not equal to <10>.

> 1) Is there anything I can do to get a more useful assertion failure
>    message?


One time when this bit me, I did the following (assuming variables
<expected> and <actual>):

    redefine expected, actual
    assert_equal(expected, actual)

  ...

  def redefine(*args)
    args.each do |obj|
      def obj.to_s
        inspect            # or some user-defined output
      end
    end
  end


In other words, I redefined the #to_s method for the expected and
actual objects so that #inspect was called instead.

I like Brian's idea that assert_equal should produce a more
intelligent error message if the two objects are not equal but produce
equal strings.

Gavin