How to assert Map contains Map with entry

Question

I have a unit test that needs to check for a nested map value. I can get my assertion to work by pulling out the entry and matching the underlying Map, but I was looking for a clear way to show what the assertion is doing. Here is a very simplified test:

import static org.hamcrest.MatcherAssert.assertThat;
import static org.hamcrest.Matchers.hasEntry;

import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

import org.junit.Test;

public class MapContainsMapTest {
    @Test
    public void testMapHasMap() {
        Map<String, Object> outerMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        Map<String, Object> nestedMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
        nestedMap.put("foo", "bar");
        outerMap.put("nested", nestedMap);

        // works but murky
        assertThat((Map<String, Object>) outerMap.get("nested"), hasEntry("foo", "bar"));
        // fails but clear
        assertThat(outerMap, hasEntry("nested", hasEntry("foo", "bar")));
    }
}

It seems the problem is the outer map is being compared using hasEntry(K key, V value) while what I want to use is hasEntry(Matcher<? super K> keyMatcher, Matcher<? super V> valueMatcher). I am not sure how to coerce the assertion to use the second form.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

If you only want to put Map<String, Object> as values in your outerMap adjust the declaration accordingly. Then you can do

@Test
public void testMapHasMap() {
    Map<String, Map<String, Object>> outerMap = new HashMap<>();
    Map<String, Object> nestedMap = new HashMap<String, Object>();
    nestedMap.put("foo", "bar");
    outerMap.put("nested", nestedMap);

    Object value = "bar";
    assertThat(outerMap, hasEntry(equalTo("nested"), hasEntry("foo", value)));  
}

Object value = "bar"; is necessary for compile reasons. Alternatively you could use

assertThat(outerMap,
   hasEntry(equalTo("nested"), Matchers.<String, Object> hasEntry("foo", "bar")));