Rspec - Check if an array have same elements than other, regardless of the order

Question

I'm not sure if its a Rspec question, but I only encountred this problem on Rspec tests.

I want to check if an array is equal to another array, regardless of the elements order :

[:b, :a, :c] =?= [:a, :b, :c]

My current version :

my_array.length.should == 3
my_array.should include(:a)
my_array.should include(:b)
my_array.should include(:c)

Is there any method on Rspec, ruby or Rails for do something like this :

my_array.should have_same_elements_than([:a, :b, :c])

Regards

Answer 1

There is a match_array matcher in RSpec which does this:

http://rubydoc.info/github/rspec/rspec-expectations/RSpec/Matchers:match_array

Answer 2

You can use the =~ operator:

[:b, :a, :c].should =~ [:a, :b, :c] # pass

From the docs:

Passes if actual contains all of the expected regardless of order. This works for collections. Pass in multiple args and it will only pass if all args are found in collection.

For RSpec's expect syntax there's match_array:

expect([:b, :a, :c]).to match_array([:a, :b, :c]) # pass

or contain_exactly if you're passing single elements:

expect([:b, :a, :c]).to contain_exactly(:a, :b, :c) # pass