Why doesn't JUnit provide assertNotEquals methods?

Question

Does anybody know why JUnit 4 provides assertEquals(foo,bar) but not assertNotEqual(foo,bar) methods?

It provides assertNotSame (corresponding to assertSame) and assertFalse (corresponding to assertTrue), so it seems strange that they didn't bother including assertNotEqual.

By the way, I know that JUnit-addons provides the methods I'm looking for. I'm just asking out of curiosity.

Answer 1

I wonder same, api of Assert is not too symmetric, because for testing do objects refer to same it provides assertSame and assertNotSame.

Of course it is not too long to write:

assertFalse(foo.equals(bar));

Answer 2

I'd suggest you use the newer assertThat() style asserts, which can easily describe all kinds of negations and automatically build a description of what you expected and what you got if the assertion fails:

assertThat(objectUnderTest, is(not(someOtherObject)));
assertThat(objectUnderTest, not(someOtherObject));
assertThat(objectUnderTest, not(equalTo(someOtherObject)));

All three options are equivalent, choose the one you find most readable.

Answer 3

thank you both for the suggestions, very interesting to explore