JsonUnit

JsonUnit is a library that simplifies JSON comparison in unit tests. It's strongly inspired by XmlUnit, although it much more primitive. The usage is simple:

import static net.javacrumbs.jsonunit.JsonAssert.assertJsonEquals;

...

// compares two JSON documents
assertJsonEquals("{\"test\":1}", "{\n\"foo\": 1\n}");

// compares only part
assertJsonPartEquals("2", "{\"test\":[{\"value\":1},{\"value\":2}]}", "test[1].value");

// compares only the structure, not the values
assertJsonStructureEquals("[{\"test\":1}, {\"test\":2}]", "[{\n\"test\": 1\n}, {\"TEST\": 4}]")

When the values are compared, order of elements and whitespaces are ignored. On the other hand values 1 and 1.0 are considered to be different.

Hamcrests matchers

You use Hamcrest matchers in the following way

import static net.javacrumbs.jsonunit.JsonMatchers.*;
import static org.junit.Assert.*;
...

assertThat("{\"test\":1}", jsonEquals("{\"test\": 1}"));
assertThat("{\"test\":1}", jsonPartEquals("test", "1"));
assertThat("{\"test\":[1, 2, 3]}", jsonPartEquals("test[0]", "1"));

Ignoring values

Sometimes you need to ignore certain values when comparing. It is possible to use ${json-unit.ignore} placeholder like this

assertJsonEquals("{\"test\":\"${json-unit.ignore}\"}",
    "{\n\"test\": {\"object\" : {\"another\" : 1}}}");

Fluent assertions

Fluent (FEST or AssertJ like) assertions are supported by a special module json-unit-fluent

import static net.javacrumbs.jsonunit.fluent.JsonAssert.assertThatJson;
...

// compares entire documents
assertThatJson("{\"test\":1}").isEqualTo("{\"test\":2}");

// compares only parts of the document
assertThatJson("{\"test1\":2, \"test2\":1}")
    .node("test1").isEqualTo(2)
    .node("test2").isEqualTo(2);

assertThatJson("{\"root\":{\"test\":[1,2,3}}")
    .node("root.test[0]").isEqualTo(1);

// compares only the structure
assertThatJson("{\"test\":1}").hasSameStructureAs("{\"test\":21}");

// ignores a value
assertThatJson("{\"test\":1}").isEqualTo("{\"test\":\"${json-unit.ignore}\"}");

// ignores a value with a different placeholder
assertThatJson("{\"test\":1}").ignoring("##IGNORE##").isEqualTo("{\"test\":\"##IGNORE##\"}")

Logging

Although the differences are printed out by the assert statement, sometimes you use JsonUnit with other libraries like Jadler that do not print the differences between documents. In such case, you can switch on the logging. JsonUnit uses SLF4J. The only thing you need to do is to configure your logging framework to log net.javacrumbs.jsonunit.difference on DEBUG level.

Maven dependency

JsonUnit is accessible in Maven central repository

<dependency>
	<groupId>net.javacrumbs.json-unit</groupId>
	<artifactId>json-unit</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.16</version>
	<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

To use fluent assertions:

<dependency>
	<groupId>net.javacrumbs.json-unit</groupId>
	<artifactId>json-unit-fluent</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.16</version>
	<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Licence

JsonUnit is licensed under Apache 2.0 licence. It's built on top of Jackson

Known limitations

1. It's not much extensible. The interface is intentionally simple, extensibility might be added in the future.
2. It's not possible to change number comparison strategy.