PHPUnit: assert two arrays are equal, but order of elements not important

Question

What is a good way to assert that two arrays of objects are equal, when the order of the elements in the array is unimportant, or even subject to change?

Answer 1

You can use assertEqualsCanonicalizing method which was added in PHPUnit 7.5. If you compare the arrays using this method, these arrays will be sorted by PHPUnit arrays comparator itself.

Code example:

class ArraysTest extends \PHPUnit\Framework\TestCase
{
    public function testEquality()
    {
        $obj1 = $this->getObject(1);
        $obj2 = $this->getObject(2);
        $obj3 = $this->getObject(3);

        $array1 = [$obj1, $obj2, $obj3];
        $array2 = [$obj2, $obj1, $obj3];

        // Pass
        $this->assertEqualsCanonicalizing($array1, $array2);

        // Fail
        $this->assertEquals($array1, $array2);
    }

    private function getObject($value)
    {
        $result = new \stdClass();
        $result->property = $value;
        return $result;
    }
}

In older versions of PHPUnit you can use an undocumented param $canonicalize of assertEquals method. If you pass $canonicalize = true, you will get the same effect:

class ArraysTest extends PHPUnit_Framework_TestCase
{
    public function testEquality()
    {
        $obj1 = $this->getObject(1);
        $obj2 = $this->getObject(2);
        $obj3 = $this->getObject(3);

        $array1 = [$obj1, $obj2, $obj3];
        $array2 = [$obj2, $obj1, $obj3];

        // Pass
        $this->assertEquals($array1, $array2, "\$canonicalize = true", 0.0, 10, true);

        // Fail
        $this->assertEquals($array1, $array2, "Default behaviour");
    }

    private function getObject($value)
    {
        $result = new stdclass();
        $result->property = $value;
        return $result;
    }
}

Arrays comparator source code at latest version of PHPUnit: https://github.com/sebastianbergmann/comparator/blob/master/src/ArrayComparator.php#L46