Verifying Results in Tests

So you finally got yourself writing a test against a database. In the test, you have to verify that a row in the table is correct, so you write:

assertEquals (
    "2008-09-16-13.50.18.000000;;;;1;2008-08-07;2008-08-07;JUNIT;2008-09-16;t0001;001;;Doe;Jane;;Street;2;Doe Jane;;;;;X;2575;John;;;;US;E;;01;;;;125;01425;0;Shop;;;DOE;JANE;JOHN;032;1;;0001010301;;;;",
    dumpRow(key));

and it sucks. Yeah, junit will notify you when something in that row is wrong and if you have a cool IDE, you can even compare the fields … but it still sucks. If one of the fields in the middle change, you have to scroll and eyeball-diff, wasting your time. The solution is pretty simple:

assertEquals (
    "2008-09-16-13.50.18.000000\n"
    + "\n"
    + "\n"
    + "\n"
    + "1\n"
    + "2008-08-07\n"
    + "2008-08-07\n"
    + "JUNIT\n"
    + "2008-09-16\n"
...
    dumpRow(key).replaceAll(";", "\n");

Instead of dumping the data in a single long string, split it into lines so you can compare fields side by side and without scrolling sideways.