What is actually assertEquals in Python?

Question

I have the following test.py file in django. can you please explain this code?

from contacts.models import Contact
...
class ContactTests(TestCase):
    """Contact model tests."""

    def test_str(self):

        contact = Contact(first_name='John', last_name='Smith')

        self.assertEquals(
            str(contact),
            'John Smith',
        )

Answer 1

from contacts.models import Contact  # import model Contact
...
class ContactTests(TestCase):  # start a test case
    """Contact model tests."""

    def test_str(self):  # start one test

        contact = Contact(first_name='John', last_name='Smith')  # create a Contact object with 2 params like that

        self.assertEquals(  # check if str(contact) == 'John Smith'
            str(contact),  
            'John Smith',
        )

Basically it will check if str(contact) == 'John Smith', if not then assert equal is failed and the test is failed and it will notify you the error at that line.

In other words, assertEquals is a function to check if two variables are equal, for purposes of automated testing:

def assertEquals(var1, var2):
    if var1 == var2:
        return True
    else:
        return False

Hope it helps.