MSTest Assert.AreEqual problems

Question

So I generate an empty Dictionary<string,string> to compare to my test result, and then I do this:

Assert.AreEqual(retval, temp);

And it fails even though they contain the same exact data. I've also tried using IsTrue like this: Assert.IsTrue(retval.Equals(temp)); and that fails too even if they are the same.

How can I compare just the elements, not the same memory location which I'm assuming it's doing?

Thanks.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:26:30Z

1

You could do Assert.IsTrue(retval.SequenceEqual(temp)), although this will also require the order of elements in the dictionaries to be the same. I'm not sure if you want your test for equality to be that strict.

See this question and its answers for ways to compare the contents of the dictionaries regardless of sequence.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:26

CommunityBot

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answered Oct 22, 2011 at 16:46

Jeff Ogata

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3 Comments

CodesInChaos Over a year ago

Since the order of elements in a dictionary is undefined SequenceEqual is never guaranteed to work.

Jeff Ogata Over a year ago

@CodeInChaos, does that mean the order might change between enumerations even if the contents of the dictionary aren't modified? I'm not disagreeing with you, just trying to understand why SequenceEqual wouldn't work.

CodesInChaos Over a year ago

It won't change between enumerations, but it's not guaranteed that two instances of dictionary that contain the same elements will enumerate in the same order. In practice it probably will have the same order if you do all modifications to both of them in the same order, but it's not guaranteed to work.

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 09:59:47Z

1

Have you looked at

.NET Dictionaries have same keys and values, but aren't "equal"

Looks like a pretty complete answer.

edited May 23, 2017 at 9:59

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answered Oct 22, 2011 at 17:22

Dean

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2 Comments

slandau Over a year ago

Order matters here, I just want to compare contained elements.

user94547 Over a year ago

@Dean has the right idea here. You can't compare equality of collections in MSTest unless you use the CollectionAssert methods.

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