How should one unit test the hashCode-equals contract?

Question

In a nutshell, the hashCode contract, according to Java's object.hashCode():

1. The hash code shouldn't change unless something affecting equals() changes
2. equals() implies hash codes are ==

Let's assume interest primarily in immutable data objects - their information never changes after they're constructed, so #1 is assumed to hold. That leaves #2: the problem is simply one of confirming that equals implies hash code ==.

Obviously, we can't test every conceivable data object unless that set is trivially small. So, what is the best way to write a unit test that is likely to catch the common cases?

Since the instances of this class are immutable, there are limited ways to construct such an object; this unit test should cover all of them if possible. Off the top of my head, the entry points are the constructors, deserialization, and constructors of subclasses (which should be reducible to the constructor call problem).

[I'm going to try to answer my own question via research. Input from other StackOverflowers is a welcome safety mechanism to this process.]

[This could be applicable to other OO languages, so I'm adding that tag.]

Answer 1

My advice would be to think of why/how this might ever not hold true, and then write some unit tests which target those situations.

For example, let's say you had a custom Set class. Two sets are equal if they contain the same elements, but it's possible for the underlying data structures of two equal sets to differ if those elements are stored in a different order. For example:

MySet s1 = new MySet( new String[]{"Hello", "World"} );
MySet s2 = new MySet( new String[]{"World", "Hello"} );
assertEquals(s1, s2);
assertTrue( s1.hashCode()==s2.hashCode() );

In this case, the order of the elements in the sets might affect their hash, depending on the hashing algorithm you've implemented. So this is the kind of test I'd write, since it tests the case where I know it would be possible for some hashing algorithm to produce different results for two objects I've defined to be equal.

You should use a similar standard with your own custom class, whatever that is.

Answer 2

This is one of the only cases where I would have multiple asserts in a test. Since you need to test the equals method you should also check the hashCode method at the same time. So on each of your equals method test cases check the hashCode contract as well.

A one = new A(...);
A two = new A(...);
assertEquals("These should be equal", one, two);
int oneCode = one.hashCode();
assertEquals("HashCodes should be equal", oneCode, two.hashCode());
assertEquals("HashCode should not change", oneCode, one.hashCode());

And of course checking for a good hashCode is another exercise. Honestly I wouldn't bother to do the double check to make sure the hashCode wasn't changing in the same run, that sort of problem is better handled by catching it in a code review and helping the developer understand why that's not a good way to write hashCode methods.

Answer 3

I would recommend the EqualsTester from GSBase. It does basically what you want. I have two (minor) problems with it though:

• The constructor does all the work, which I don't consider to be good practice.
• It fails when an instance of class A equals to an instance of a subclass of class A. This is not necessarily a violation of the equals contract.

Answer 4

[At the time of this writing, three other answers were posted.]

To reiterate, the aim of my question is to find standard cases of tests to confirm that hashCode and equals are agreeing with each other. My approach to this question is to imagine the common paths taken by programmers when writing the classes in question, namely, immutable data. For example:

1. Wrote equals() without writing hashCode(). This often means equality was defined to mean equality of the fields of two instances.
2. Wrote hashCode() without writing equals(). This may mean the programmer was seeking a more efficient hashing algorithm.

In the case of #2, the problem seems nonexistent to me. No additional instances have been made equals(), so no additional instances are required to have equal hash codes. At worst, the hash algorithm may yield poorer performance for hash maps, which is outside the scope of this question.

In the case of #1, the standard unit test entails creating two instances of the same object with the same data passed to the constructor, and verifying equal hash codes. What about false positives? It's possible to pick constructor parameters that just happen to yield equal hash codes on a nonetheless unsound algorithm. A unit test that tends to avoid such parameters would fulfill the spirit of this question. The shortcut here is to inspect the source code for equals(), think hard, and write a test based on that, but while this may be necessary in some cases, there may also be common tests that catch common problems - and such tests also fulfill the spirit of this question.

For example, if the class to be tested (call it Data) has a constructor that takes a String, and instances constructed from Strings that are equals() yielded instances that were equals(), then a good test would probably test:

• new Data("foo")
• another new Data("foo")

We could even check the hash code for new Data(new String("foo")), to force the String to not be interned, although that's more likely to yield a correct hash code than Data.equals() is to yield a correct result, in my opinion.

Eli Courtwright's answer is an example of thinking hard of a way to break the hash algorithm based on knowledge of the equals specification. The example of a special collection is a good one, as user-made Collections do turn up at times, and are quite prone to muckups in the hash algorithm.

Answer 5

It's worth using the junit addons for this. Check out the class EqualsHashCodeTestCase http://junit-addons.sourceforge.net/ you can extend this and implement createInstance and createNotEqualInstance, this will check the equals and hashCode methods are correct.

Answer 6

EqualsVerifier is a relatively new open source project and it does a very good job at testing the equals contract. It doesn't have the issues the EqualsTester from GSBase has. I would definitely recommend it.