Configuring Differs

In Difflicious, Differs are built to be reconfigurable. This allows you to adapt an existing Differ for each test as needed.

Difflicious also supports “deep configuration” where you can tweak how a particular sub-structure of a type is compared. with an intuitive API similar to the ones found in libraries like diffx and Quicklens.

Differs are immutable - if you configure it it’ll return a new Differ.

Code examples in this page assumes the following import:

import difflicious._
import difflicious.implicits._

Basic Configuration

Ignore and Unignore

You can call .ignore or .unignore on all Differs. This will ignore their diff results and stop it from failing tests.

Pair By

For Differs of Seq/Set-like data structures, you can call .pairBy or .pairByIndex to change how elements of these data structures are paired up for comparison.

Deep configuration using path expressions

Difflicious supports configuring a subpart of a Differ with a complex type by using .configure which takes a “path expression” which you can use to express the path to the Differ you want to configure.

Differ Type Allowed Paths Explanation
Seq .each Traverse down to the Differ used to compare the elements
Set .each Traverse down to the Differ used to compare the elements
Map .each Traverse down to the Differ used to compare the values of the Map
Case Class (any case class field) Traverse down to the Differ for the specified sub type
Sealed Trait .subType[SomeSubType] Traverse down to the Differ for the specified sub type

Some examples:

val differ: Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]] = Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]]

// Don't fail if peron's name is different.
val differIgnoringPersonName = differ.ignoreAt(_.each.each.name)
// .ignoreAt is just a shorthand for configure(...)(_.ignore) so this is equivalent
val differIgnoringPersonName2 = differ.configure(_.each.each.name)(_.ignore)

// When comparing List[Person], pair the elements by the Person's name
val differPairingByPersonName = differ.configure(_.each)(_.pairBy(_.name))

// "Focusing" into the Differ for a subtype and ignoring a field
val sealedTraitDiffer: Differ[List[MySealedTrait]] = Differ[List[MySealedTrait]]
val differWithSubTypesFieldIgnored = sealedTraitDiffer.ignoreAt(_.each.subType[SomeSubType].fieldInSubType)

Replace differs

You can completely replace the underlying differ at a path using replace. This is useful when you want to reuse an existing Differ you already have.

val mapDiffer: Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]] = Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]]
val pairAndCompareByAge = Differ[List[Person]].pairBy(_.age).ignoreAt(_.each.name)
val pairByName = Differ[List[Person]].pairBy(_.name)

// Use this to compare each person list by age only
mapDiffer.replace(_.each)(pairAndCompareByAge)

// Use this to compare each person list paired by name
mapDiffer.replace(_.each)(pairByName)

Unsafe API with configureRaw

This is a low-level API that you shouldn’t need in normal usage. All the nice in the previous sections calls this under the hood and it is exposed in case you really need it.

configureRaw takes a stringly-typed path to configure the Differ and a raw ConfigureOp. While the API tries to detect errors, there is very little type safety and mistakes can lead to runtime exception. (For example, configureRaw won’t stop you from replacing a Differ with a Differ of the wrong type)

def configureRaw(path: ConfigurePath, operation: ConfigureOp): Either[DifferUpdateError, Differ[T]]

We need to provide:

  • A path parameter to “travsere” to the Differ you want to cnofigure. Can be the current Differ (ConfigurePath.current), or a Differ embedded inside it.
  • The type of configuration change you want to make e.g. Mark the Differ as ignored

Let’s look at some examples:

import difflicious.{Differ, ConfigureOp, ConfigurePath}

Example: Changing diff of List[Person] to pair elements by name field

Let’s say we want to compare the List[Person] independent of element order but instead match by name field…

val defaultDiffer: Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]] = Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]]
val differPairByName: Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]] = defaultDiffer
  .configureRaw(
    ConfigurePath.of("each"), 
    ConfigureOp.PairBy.ByFunc[Person, String](_.name)
  ).right.get
  
// Try it!  
differPairByName.diff(
  Map(
    "Germany" -> List(
      Person("Bob", 55),
      Person("Alice", 55),
    )
  ),
  Map(
    "Germany" -> List(
      Person("Alice", 56),
      Person("Bob", 55),
    ),
    "France" -> List.empty
  )
)
Map(
  "Germany" -> List(
      Person(
        name: "Bob",
        age: 55,
      ),
      Person(
        name: "Alice",
        age: 55 -> 56,
      ),
    ),
  "France" -> List(
    ),
)

Example: Ignore a field in a Person when comparing

Let’s say we don’t want to take into account the name of the person when comparing…

val differPersonAgeIgnored: Differ[Map[String, List[Person]]] = defaultDiffer
  .configureRaw(
    ConfigurePath.of("each", "each", "age"), 
    ConfigureOp.ignore
  ).right.get
  
// Try it!  
differPersonAgeIgnored.diff(
  Map(
    "Germany" -> List(
      Person("Alice", 55),
      Person("Bob", 55),
    )
  ),
  Map(
    "Germany" -> List(
      Person("Alice", 100),
      Person("Bob", 100),
    ),
  )
)
Map(
  "Germany" -> List(
      Person(
        name: "Alice",
        age: [IGNORED],
      ),
      Person(
        name: "Bob",
        age: [IGNORED],
      ),
    ),
)

When testing (e.g. assertNoDiff) the test would pass because the person’s age is not considered in the comparison.