On Tue, Dec 22, 2020 at 10:54 AM Alan G. Isaac <alan.isaac@gmail.com> wrote:
The following test fails because because `seq1 == seq2` returns a (boolean) NumPy array whenever either seq is a NumPy array.
import unittest import numpy as np unittest.TestCase().assertSequenceEqual([1.,2.,3.], np.array([1.,2.,3.]))
I expected `unittest` to rely only on features of a `collections.abc.Sequence`, which based on https://docs.python.org/3/glossary.html#term-sequence, I believe are satisfied by a NumPy array. Specifically, I see no requirement that a sequence implement __eq__ at all much less in any particular way.
In short: a test named `assertSequenceEqual` should, I would think, work for any sequence and therefore (based on the available documentation) should not depend on the class-specific implementation of __eq__.
Is that wrong?
Yes and no. :) I don't agree that `seq1 == seq2` should not be tried if the sequences support it, but the function does work on sequences that lack a definition of `__eq__` as you would expect (e.g. user-defined sequences where you just didn't want to bother). The fact that numpy chooses to implement __eq__ in such a way that its result would be surprising if used in an `if` guard I think is more a design choice/issue of numpy than a suggestion that you can't trust `==` in testing because it _can_ be something other than True/False.