[Perlunit-users] Comparing deeply nested data structures.

[Desilets, A. <Ala...@nr...>]

I am writing some PerlUnit tests, and I am testing a method that returns =
a complex data structure (a reference to an array whose elements are =
references to hashtables).

I want to easily compare the output of that method to expected output, =
and if the two differ, get a good diagnostic message that describes =
exactly how the two differ.=20

For example, if I compare:

 [{'hello'=3D>1}, {'world'=3D>1}] with  [{'hello'=3D>1}, {'earth'=3D>1}]

I would like the error message to look something like this:

The two arrays differed at element 1:
Got:  {'world'=3D>1}
Expected: {'earth'=3D>1}

The hashes had different keys
Got Keys: ['world']
Expected Keys: ['earth']

Is there something in Perl that would allow me to do this?

I stumbled across cmp_deeply(), but I can't figure out how to use it. =
It's part of a testing framework different from PerlUnit, and I can't =
seem to be able to use it without running it inside that other testing =
framework (which I don't have time to learn).

Thx.

----
Alain D=E9silets, National Research Council of Canada
Chair, WikiSym 2007

2007 International Symposium on Wikis
Wikis at Work in the World:
Open, Organic, Participatory Media for the 21st Century=20

http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/