nunit Getting started with nunit Why you can’t use Assert.Equals

Example

Ever wondered why you cannot use Assert.Equals() for both Nunit and MSTest. If you have not then maybe as a start you need to be aware that you cannot use this method. Instead you would use Assert.AreEqual() to compare two objects for equality.

The reason here is very simple. Like any class the Assert class is inheriting from System.Object that has a public virtual Equals method meant to check if a given object is equal to the current object. Therefor calling that equals method would be a mistake as in a unit test you would instead to compare two objects that have nothing to do with the Assert class. As a result Nunit and MSTest both chose to provide a method Assert.AreEqual for that purpose.

Furthermore to ensure that you do not use the Equals method by mistake they have decided to throw Exceptions to warn you if you do use this by mistake.

Nunit Implementation:

        [EditorBrowsable(EditorBrowsableState.Never)]
    public static new bool Equals(object a, object b)
    {
        // TODO: This should probably be InvalidOperationException
        throw new AssertionException("Assert.Equals should not be used for Assertions");
    }