Grails/groovy testing - any difference between assert and assertEquals methods

Question

I have numerous Grails unit and integration groovy test classes.

Originally I used methods such as assertEquals, assertNull, assertTrue, assertFalse, etc.

assertEquals 0, User.list().size()

but recently I've been preferring to use a straight assert:

assert User.list().size() == 0

Is there any difference between these 2 approaches?

Answer 1

The assertEquals is using a JUnit assertion, whereas the assert is using groovy's power assert. The power assert gives you much nicer error messages and is built-in to the language. You should generally use that one when you can.

Answer 2

An AssertionError is thrown in case assertEquals fails but no such error is thrown in case when assert is used but it does a power assert in groovy and provides good assertion messages when fails.