Comparing dates with JUnit testing

Question

Hello I'm new to the site and have a issue with my application using JUnit testing. My issue is when I try to compare the Date method with itself it always fails. I printed the Date object in the test to see the problem and always end up with the package name and random letters. Here is the Date constructor:

public class Date
{
SimpleDateFormat dformat = new SimpleDateFormat("dd-MM-yyyy");

private int day;
private int month;
private int year;

public Date() 
{
    String today;
    Calendar present = Calendar.getInstance();

    day = present.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
    month = present.get(Calendar.MONTH);
    year = present.get(Calendar.YEAR);

    present.setLenient(false);
    present.set(year, month - 1, day, 0, 0);

    today = dformat.format(present.getTime());
    System.out.println(today);
}

Here is my test:

@Test 
public void currentDay()
{
    Date current = new Date();
    System.out.println(current);
    assertEquals("today:", current, new Date());
}

Yet the result always fails and I get something on the lines of:

comp.work.wk.Date@d3ade7

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Overriding default equals method is not necessary. You simply use Date.compareTo() to compare two date objects.

Answer 2

Although the answer by @Shrikanth solves it, this issue also arises with normal Date objects. Two possible solutions are given here:

1. Make use of DateUtils.truncate (or even DateUtils.truncatedEquals) to compare the dates. This is something you could use in your equals method, or for normal Date objects directly in you assertEquals/assertTrue.

   assertEquals(DateUtils.truncate(date1,Calendar.SECOND), 
                DateUtils.truncate(date2,Calendar.SECOND));
   

2. Don't check whether the dates are the same, but whether they are close enough to eachother (for JUnit test sake):

   assertTrue("Dates aren't close enough to each other!", 
              Math.abs(date2.getTime() - date1.getTime()) < 1000);