Concise way to assert a value matches a given pattern in ScalaTest - scala

Question

Is there a nice way to check that a pattern match succeeds in ScalaTest? An option is given in scalatest-users mailing list:
<value> match {
case <pattern> =>
case obj => fail("Did not match: " + obj)
}
However, it doesn't compose (e.g. if I want to assert that exactly 2 elements of a list match the pattern using Inspectors API). I could write a matcher taking a partial function literal and succeeding if it's defined (it would have to be a macro if I wanted to get the pattern in the message as well). Is there a better alternative?

Answer 1

I am not 100% sure I understand the question you're asking, but one possible answer is to use inside from the Inside trait. Given:
case class Address(street: String, city: String, state: String, zip: String)
case class Name(first: String, middle: String, last: String)
case class Record(name: Name, address: Address, age: Int)
You can write:
inside (rec) { case Record(name, address, age) =>
inside (name) { case Name(first, middle, last) =>
first should be ("Sally")
middle should be ("Ann")
last should be ("Jones")
}
inside (address) { case Address(street, city, state, zip) =>
street should startWith ("25")
city should endWith ("Angeles")
state should equal ("CA")
zip should be ("12345")
}
age should be < 99
}
That works for both assertions or matchers. Details here:
http://www.scalatest.org/user_guide/other_goodies#inside
The other option if you are using matchers and just want to assert that a value matches a particular pattern, you can just the matchPattern syntax:
val name = Name("Jane", "Q", "Programmer")
name should matchPattern { case Name("Jane", _, _) => }
http://www.scalatest.org/user_guide/using_matchers#matchingAPattern
The scalatest-users post you pointed to was from 2011. We have added the above syntax for this use case since then.
Bill

Answer 2

This might not be exactly what you want, but you could write your test assertion using an idiom like this.
import scala.util.{ Either, Left, Right }
// Test class should extend org.scalatest.AppendedClues
val result = value match {
case ExpectedPattern => Right("test passed")
case _ => Left("failure explained here")
})
result shouldBe 'Right withClue(result.left.get)
This approach leverages the fact that that Scala match expression results in a value.
Here's a more concise version that does not require trait AppendedClues or assigning the result of the match expression to a val.
(value match {
case ExpectedPattern => Right("ok")
case _ => Left("failure reason")
}) shouldBe Right("ok")