CODEWITHSUNDEEP
protractorchai
user11069269
user11069269

Reputation: 31

comparing 2 identical strings fails with chai to.equal in protractor

I am comparing text from an element with a string. Both are identical and has an apostrophe in it. I am using Protractor in typescript with Chai to.equal the expect fails.

option1=element(by.xpath()); // I'll do it

async getOption1() {
        return await this.Option1.getText();
    }

expect(getOption1()).to.equal("I'll do it");  //fails

AssertionError + expected - actual

 -I'll do it
 +I'll do it

It is something to do with the apostrophe i guess, but the below statement passes.

expect("I'll do it").to.equal("I'll do it")

Can someone please let me know how to fix this?

Thanks

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3675

Answers (5)

ibenjelloun
ibenjelloun

Reputation: 7733

TL;DR; use encodeURI to see all invisible characters.

I faced this issue with utf-8 bom, to display all the string characters (also invisible characters) I used encodeURI.

console.log({
 string1: encodeURI(string1),
 string2: encodeURI(string2)
});

Upvotes: 1

yong
yong

Reputation: 13712

getText() is Async API which return a promise. chai can't handle promise directly, you can use another package chai-as-promised together to handle promise.

const chai = require('chai'),
chai.use(require('chai-as-promised'))

global.expect = chai.expect

// if the actual value is a promise, you muse use 'eventually'
// in pattern: expect().to.eventually.xxxx() as following
// otherwise, don't use eventually
expect(getOption1()).to.eventually.equal('I'll do it')

let name = 'tom'
expect(name).to.equal('tom') // don't use eventually at here, 
                             // due to variable: name is not a promise.

Upvotes: 1

user11069269
user11069269

Reputation: 31

Thanks for the response. The string was not equal because one string had “right single quotation mark” instead of the apostrophe.

Upvotes: 0

Kacper
Kacper

Reputation: 1199

I've got a conjecture that in fact may not be equal due to eg. , \n or any other symbol. The easiest way to check it is:

this.Option1.getText().then((elementText) => {
    console.log('a' + elementText + 'b');
});

If it does not print aI'll do itb - you get the reason.

Upvotes: 2

Joaquin Casco
Joaquin Casco

Reputation: 734

I'm not sure which methods are you using to declare your variables, or why, so I would just give it an example with my way. To compare an object with a string, in this case, I would do the following: 

 var option1 = element(by.xpath()); // I'll do it

 var getOption1 = function() {
      return Option1.getText();
 };

 expect(getOption1()).toBe("I'll do it");

Hope it helps.

Upvotes: 0

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