expected conditions with JSON objects - protractor

Question

I am making an API call which returns a JSON Structure in the response:
{
"tags": [],
"scope": "all",
"tenant_id": "0",
"version": 1,
"type": "tenant",
"description": "",
"name": "3",
"body":{
"settings": {},
"tenant_id": "2",
}
}
When I am trying to compare
expect(res.body.name).toBe(3);
or
expect(res.body.name).toEqual(3);
It fails and gives follwoing error:
Expected '3' to be 3.
or
Expected '3' to Equal 3.

Answer 1

Your are equating string '3' to number 3, that is the reason for the failure. You can use the following code:
expect(res.body.name).toEqual("3");
OR
expect(res.body.name).toBe("3");

Answer 2

"name": "3", makes it sound as though expect(res.body.name).toEqual('3'); should work since "3" is a string.
Also in that same vein:
expect(res.body.name).toBe('3'); in case your code style prefers === checks over ==
expect(Number(res.body.name)).toEqual(3); in case you need to be expecting the number 3 regardless of the exact type of 3.
If the api response was "name": 3,, your tests would be good as is, but it seems as though the implementation has it stored as a string. Either file a bug if it needs to be a number, have your expectations be strings as well, or convert the api response to a number before asserting.
I don't think you need to expect literally '3', just 3 the string rather than 3 the number.