[Pyunit-interest] PATCH: AssertionError message

[Alexander G. <al...@in...>]

I do alot of text manipulation using python and testing with PyUnit, so
many of my tests are of the sort: self.assertEqual(string1, string2),
and it matters if there is a space on the end of one string and not on
the other. So when PyUnit returns an error message which does not delimit
the strings, I lose time trying to figure out where the difference
between these seemingly similar 200+ character strings is, when the only
difference is an extra space on the end of one.

So I hacked unittest.py as per the following patch. Now when strings are
not equal, they are displayed in quotes, so I can tell exactly where the
strings begin and end.

I am rather a newbie, so don't know if this will break anything. It
could be made conditional to strings easily enough.  Something like:
if type(first) == types.StringType: first = repr(first)
would work, I suppose.

It seemed useful and generic enough to me to suggest it for inclusion.
Feel free to beat me up for stupidity. :)
Alexander

--- pyunit-1.4.1/unittest.py	Wed Aug  8 02:05:08 2001
+++ my_pyunit/unittest.py	Mon Jun  3 11:23:03 2002
@@ -270,14 +270,14 @@
            operator.
         """
         if first != second:
-            raise self.failureException, (msg or '%s != %s' % (first, second))
+            raise self.failureException, (msg or '%s != %s' % ( repr(first), repr(second) ))
 
     def failIfEqual(self, first, second, msg=None):
         """Fail if the two objects are equal as determined by the '=='
            operator.
         """
         if first == second:
-            raise self.failureException, (msg or '%s == %s' % (first, second))
+            raise self.failureException, (msg or '%s == %s' % ( repr(first), repr(second) ))
 
     assertEqual = assertEquals = failUnlessEqual