Idea: Alternative output formatting for Assert.AreEqual(string, string)

[simmotech]

(background: migrating a project to use MSTest.TestFramework rather than NUnit)

Output from MSTest.TestFramework:

Assert.AreEqual failed. Expected:<A A and A A>. Actual:<A, A and A, A>. 

Output from NUnit:

  Expected string length 11 but was 13. Strings differ at index 1.
  Expected: "A A and A A"
  But was:  "A, A and A, A"
  ------------^

I prefer the latter message to make it clear where the differences are - some can be quite subtle.

I was wondering whether it would be possible to add a StringAssert.AreEqual() implementation that formats its message the NUnit way. Best of both worlds then - callers choice by using StringAssert. or Assert.

[powercode]

Yeah, the MSTest variant isn't that helpful.

[nohwnd]

FWIW I would prefer rendering the whole diff in commandline even more. One problem with this is that diff is often based on coloring, and that is not working in every CI. I need to look deeper into this. I did some prototypes for the same thing here on Pester pester/Pester#2562 (comment) but that is using an existing library, which we will not be able to do here. But it could be a start to see what is possible.