What is Power Assert?
Power Assert informs failed tests with more descriptive expression than normal assert function. It's originally came from Groovy language's Spock test framework as far as I know.
For example the failed result with ExUnit's assert macro:
1) test Enum.at should return the element at the given index (PowerAssertSampleTest)
test/power_assert_sample_test.exs:5
Assertion with == failed
code: array |> Enum.at(index) == two
lhs: 3 rhs: 2
stacktrace:
test/power_assert_sample_test.exs:7
The result is changed with PowerAssertEx's assert macro:
1) test Enum.at should return the element at the given index (PowerAssertSampleTest)
test/power_assert_sample_test.exs:5
array |> Enum.at(index) == two
| | | |
| 3 2 2
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
stacktrace:
test/power_assert_sample_test.exs:7
Here is the difference between ExUnit and PowerAssertEx results:
- Assertion with == failed
- code: array |> Enum.at(index) == two
- lhs: 3
- rhs: 2
+ array |> Enum.at(index) == two
+ | | | |
+ | 3 2 2
+ [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
So Power Assert provides to display each value of each statement like the above. The results is easy to understand than the normal assertion behaviour.
When you learn a new programming language, I think that becomes easy to learn if that language provides power assert function. There is often "Why does my code not work?" when learning a new language. If there is each result of each statement in such case, it is useful to understand a new language.
If you would like to know Power Assert more, please see the following slide. The slide's author is t_wada, he is the author of power-assert in JavaScript.
What is Power Assert in Elixir?
PowerAssertEx is Power Assert in Elixir. PowerAssertEx provides Power Assert function by overwriting ExUnit's assert macro, for that reason PowerAssertEx is highly dependent on ExUnit. You can easily go back to ExUnit from PowerAssertEx because you do not need to modify all of assert macro.
How to use in your project
Precondition
- ExUnit
PowerAssertEx is strongly dependent on ExUnit. So you writes test code follow the ExUnit rule. It's easy to start if you already use ExUnit for testing.
Installation
Add PowerAssertEx dependency to your mix.exs file like the following. And execute mix deps.get.
defp deps do
[
{:power_assert, "~> 0.0"}
]
end
Enable PowerAssertEx in your test code
You only change use ExUnit.Case into use PowerAssert to enable PowerAssertEx.
defmodule YourAwesomeTest do
- use ExUnit.Case
+ use PowerAssert
end
Or if you use ExUnit.CaseTemplate module, in this case you define using macro to return quote block includes use PowerAssert in your test module.
defmodule YourAwesomeTest do
use ExUnit.CaseTemplate
+ using do
+ quote do
+ use PowerAssert
+ end
+ end
end
Done! Now you can use assert macro with Power Assert function! Happy Testing! 
Use with other test frameworks such as ExSpec or ShouldI
These frameworks dependent on ExUnit. So it's also available please see the readme if you would like to use with ExSpec or ShouldI.
Limitation
Compilation error when test against macro
Currently PowerAssertEx's assert macro sometimes failed to compile if test code includes testing against macro. Because PowerAssertEx does not handle correctly to convert abstract syntax tree in such case.
To work around this problem you use ExUnit's assert macro instead on that test code.
Summary
Please try to use PowerAssertEx in your project, it's very easy to start.
Please feel free to give me any feedback.
And also please give me a star on GitHub if you like PowerAssertEx. 
Resources
- PowerAssertEx at GitHub
- PowerAssertEx at hexpm
- Power Assert Inside in Elixir
- Power Assertions - The Groovy programming language - Testing guide
- Power Assert for Java and others
- power-assert in JavaScript
- power-assert-js
- Power Assert in Ruby
- ExSpec
- ShouldI