Question

This doesn’t make any sense to me. I am trying to assert that these two dates are the same. They look the same but somehow they are different.

#assert correct time and date
assert_equal(/[0-9]{1,2}, [0-9]{4} at [0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{2} [A-Z]{2}/.match($driver.find_element(:class, "flash-information").text), /[0-9]{1,2}, [0-9]{4} at [0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{2} [A-Z]{2}/.match($driver.find_element(:class, "news_date").text))

Here is the failure I get.

F
===============================================================================
Failure: <#<MatchData "10, 2013 at 4:13 PM">> expected but was
<#<MatchData "10, 2013 at 4:13 PM">>. 

   39:     #assert correct time and date
=> 40:     assert_equal(/[0-9]{1,2}, [0-9]{4} at [0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{2} [A-Z]{2}/.match($driver.find_element(:class, "flash-information").text), /[0-9]{1,2}, [0-9]{4} at [0-9]{1,2}:[0-9]{2} [A-Z]{2}/.match($driver.find_element(:class, "news_date").text))

I am running this inside Test Unit

Answer 1

You are not matching strings, you’re matching MatchData objects.

a = "foobar".match /f/   # #<MatchData "f">
b = "foobar".match /f/   # #<MatchData "f">
c = "barfoo".match /f/   # #<MatchData "f">

a == b   # true
a == c   # false

If you want to compare matched strings, then you have to extract them from the MatchData object:

a[0]           # "f"
a[0] == b[0]   # true
a[0] == c[0]   # true