---
title: Go Test Comments
---

This page is a supplement to
[Go Code Review Comments](/wiki/CodeReviewComments),
but is targeted specifically to test code.

**Please [discuss changes](https://go.dev/issue/new?title=wiki%3A+TestComments+change&body=&labels=Documentation)
before editing this page**, even _minor_ ones. Many people have opinions and
this is not the place for edit wars.

- [Assert Libraries](/wiki/TestComments#assert-libraries)
- [Choose Human-Readable Subtest Names](/wiki/TestComments#choose-human-readable-subtest-names)
- [Compare Stable Results](/wiki/TestComments#compare-stable-results)
- [Compare Full Structures](/wiki/TestComments#compare-full-structures)
- [Equality Comparison and Diffs](/wiki/TestComments#equality-comparison-and-diffs)
- [Got before Want](/wiki/TestComments#got-before-want)
- [Identify the Function](/wiki/TestComments#identify-the-function)
- [Identify the Input](/wiki/TestComments#identify-the-input)
- [Keep Going](/wiki/TestComments#keep-going)
- [Mark Test Helpers](/wiki/TestComments#mark-test-helpers)
- [Print Diffs](/wiki/TestComments#print-diffs)
- [Table-Driven Tests vs Multiple Test Functions](/wiki/TestComments#table-driven-tests-vs-multiple-test-functions)
- [Test Error Semantics](/wiki/TestComments#test-error-semantics)

## Assert Libraries

Avoid the use of 'assert' libraries to help your tests. Go developers arriving
from xUnit frameworks often want to write code like:

```go
assert.IsNotNil(t, "obj", obj)
assert.StringEq(t, "obj.Type", obj.Type, "blogPost")
assert.IntEq(t, "obj.Comments", obj.Comments, 2)
assert.StringNotEq(t, "obj.Body", obj.Body, "")
```

but this either stops the test early (if assert calls `t.Fatalf` or `panic`)
or omits interesting information about what the test got right. It also forces
the assert package to create a whole new sub-language instead of reusing the
existing programming language (Go itself). Go has good support for printing
structures, so a better way to write this code is:

```go
if obj == nil || obj.Type != "blogPost" || obj.Comments != 2 || obj.Body == "" {
    t.Errorf("AddPost() = %+v", obj)
}
```

Assert libraries make it too easy to write imprecise tests and inevitably end up
duplicating features already in the language, like expression evaluation,
comparisons, sometimes even more. Strive to write tests that are precise both
about what went wrong and what went right, and make use of Go itself instead of
creating a mini-language inside Go.

## Choose Human-Readable Subtest Names

When you use `t.Run` to create a subtest, the first argument is used as a
descriptive name for the test. To ensure that test results are legible to humans
reading the logs, choose subtest names that will remain useful and readable
after escaping. (The test runner replaces spaces with underscores, and it
escapes non-printing characters).

To [identify the inputs](#identify-the-input), use `t.Log` in the body of the
subtest or include them in the test's failure messages, where they won't be
escaped by the test runner.

## Compare Full Structures

If your function returns a struct, don't write test code that performs an
individual comparison for each field of the struct. Instead, construct the
struct that you're expecting your function to return, and compare in one shot
using [diffs](#print-diffs) or [deep comparisons](#equality-comparison-and-diffs).
The same rule applies to arrays and maps.

If your struct needs to be compared for approximate equality or some other
kind of semantic equality, or it contains fields that cannot be compared for
equality (e.g. if one of the fields is an `io.Reader`), tweaking a
[`cmp.Diff`](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp#Diff) or
[`cmp.Equal`](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp#Equal) comparison
with [cmpopts](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp/cmpopts) options
such as [`cmpopts.IgnoreInterfaces`](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp/cmpopts#IgnoreInterfaces)
may meet your needs ([example](https://go.dev/play/p/vrCUNVfxsvF));
otherwise, this technique just won't work, so do whatever works.

If your function returns multiple return values, you don't need to wrap those in
a struct before comparing them. Just compare the return values individually and
print them.

## Compare Stable Results

Avoid comparing results that may inherently depend on output stability of some
external package that you do not control. Instead, the test should compare on
semantically relevant information that is stable and resistant to changes in
your dependencies. For functionality that returns a formatted string or
serialized bytes, it is generally not safe to assume that the output is stable.

For example, [`json.Marshal`](https://pkg.go.dev/encoding/json/#Marshal)
makes no guarantee about the exact bytes that it may emit. It has the freedom to
change (and has changed in the past) the output. Tests that perform string
equality on the exact JSON string may break if the `json` package changes how it
serializes the bytes. Instead, a more robust test would parse the contents of
the JSON string and ensure that it is semantically equivalent to some expected
data structure.

## Equality Comparison and Diffs

The `==` operator evaluates equality using the
[language-defined comparisons](https://go.dev/ref/spec#Comparison_operators).
Values it can compare include numeric, string, and pointer values and structs
with fields of those values. In particular, it determines two pointers to be
equal only if they point to the same variable.

Use the [cmp](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp) package. Use
[`cmp.Equal`](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp#Equal) for equality
comparison and [`cmp.Diff`](https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/google/go-cmp/cmp#Diff)
to obtain a human-readable diff between objects.

Although the `cmp` package is not part of the Go standard library, it is
maintained by the Go team and should produce stable results across Go version
updates. It is user-configurable and should serve most comparison needs.

You will find older code using the standard `reflect.DeepEqual` function to
compare complex structures. Prefer `cmp` for new code, and consider updating
older code to use `cmp` where practical. `reflect.DeepEqual` is sensitive to
changes in unexported fields and other implementation details.

NOTE: The `cmp` package can also be used with protocol buffer messages, by
including the `cmp.Comparer(proto.Equal)` option when comparing protocol buffer
messages.

## Got before Want

Test outputs should output the actual value that the function returned before
printing the value that was expected. A usual format for printing test outputs
is "`YourFunc(%v) = %v, want %v`".

For diffs, directionality is less apparent, and thus it is important to include
a key to aid in interpreting the failure. See [Print Diffs](#print-diffs).

Whichever order you use in your failure messages, you should explicitly indicate
the ordering as a part of the failure message, because existing code is
inconsistent about the ordering.

## Identify the Function

In most tests, failure messages should include the name of the function that
failed, even though it seems obvious from the name of the test function.

Prefer:

```go
t.Errorf("YourFunc(%v) = %v, want %v", in, got, want)
```

and not:

```go
t.Errorf("got %v, want %v", got, want)
```

## Identify the Input

In most tests, your test failure messages should include the function inputs if
they are short. If the relevant properties of the inputs are not obvious (for
example, because the inputs are large or opaque), you should name your test
cases with a description of what's being tested, and print the description as
part of your error message.

Do not use the index of the test in the test table as a substitute for naming
your tests or printing the inputs. Nobody wants to go through your test table
and count the entries in order to figure out which test case is failing.

## Keep Going

Even after your test cases encounter a failure, they should keep going for as
long as possible in order to print out all of the failed checks in a single run.
This way, someone who's fixing the failing test doesn't have to play
whac-a-mole, fixing one bug and then re-running the test to find the next bug.

On a practical level, prefer calling `t.Error` over `t.Fatal`. When comparing
several different properties of a function's output, use `t.Error` for each of
those comparisons.

`t.Fatal` is usually only appropriate when some piece of test setup fails,
without which you cannot run the test at all. In a table-driven test, `t.Fatal`
is appropriate
for failures that set up the whole test function before the test loop. Failures
that affect a single entry in the test table, which make it impossible to
continue with that entry, should be reported as follows:

- If you're not using `t.Run` subtests, you should use `t.Error` followed by a
  `continue` statement to move on to the next table entry.
- If you're using subtests (and you're inside a call to `t.Run`), then
  `t.Fatal` ends the current subtest and allows your test case to progress to
  the next subtest, so use `t.Fatal`.

## Mark Test Helpers

A test helper is a function that performs a setup or teardown task, such as
constructing an input message, that does not depend on the code under test.

If you pass a `*testing.T`, call
[`t.Helper`](https://pkg.go.dev/testing#T.Helper) to attribute failures in the
test helper to the line where the helper is called.

```go
func TestSomeFunction(t *testing.T) {
  golden := readFile(t, "testdata/golden.txt")
  // ...
}

func readFile(t *testing.T, filename string) string {
  t.Helper()

  contents, err := ioutil.ReadFile(filename)
  if err != nil {
    t.Fatal(err)
  }

  return string(contents)
}
```

Do not use this pattern when it obscures the connection between a test failure
and the conditions that led to it. Specifically, `t.Helper` should not be used
to implement assert libraries.

## Print Diffs

If your function returns large output then it can be hard for someone reading
the failure message to find the differences when your test fails. Instead of
printing both the returned value and the wanted value, make a diff.

Add some text to your failure message explaining the direction of the diff.

Something like "`diff -want +got`" is good when you're using the `cmp` package
(if you pass `(want, got)` to the function), because the `-` and `+` that you
add to your format string will match the `+` and `-` that actually appear at the
beginning of the diff lines.

The diff will span multiple lines, so you should print a newline before you
print the diff.

## Table-Driven Tests vs Multiple Test Functions

[Table-driven](/wiki/TableDrivenTests) tests should
be used whenever many different test cases can be tested using similar testing
logic, for example when testing whether the actual output of a function is equal
to the expected output [example](TableDrivenTests#example-of-a-table-driven-test),
or when testing whether the outputs of a function always conform to the same set
of invariants.

When some test cases need to be checked using different logic from other test
cases, it is more appropriate to write multiple test functions. The logic of
your test code can get difficult to understand when every entry in a table has
to be subjected to multiple kinds of conditional logic to do the right kind of
output check for the right kind of input. If they have different logic but
identical setup, a sequence of subtests within a single test function might
also make sense.

You can combine table-driven tests with multiple test functions. For example, if
you're testing that a function's non-error output exactly matches the expected
output, and you're also testing that the function returns some non-nil error
when it gets invalid input, then the clearest unit tests can be achieved by
writing two separate table-driven test functions — one for normal non-error
outputs, and one for error outputs.

## Test Error Semantics

When a unit test performs string comparisons or uses `reflect.DeepEqual` to
check that particular kinds of errors are returned for particular inputs, you
may find that your tests are fragile if you have to reword any of those error
messages in
the future. Since this has the potential to turn your unit test into a
[change detector](https://testing.googleblog.com/2015/01/testing-on-toilet-change-detector-tests.html),
don't use string comparison to check what type of error your function returns.

It's OK to use string comparisons to check that error messages coming from the
package under test satisfy some property, for example, that it includes the
parameter name.

If you care about testing the exact type of error that your functions return,
you should separate the error string intended for human eyes from the
structure that is exposed for programmatic use. In this case, you should avoid
using `fmt.Errorf`, which tends to destroy semantic error information.

Many people who write APIs don't care exactly what kinds of errors their API
returns for different inputs. If your API is like this, then it is sufficient to
create error messages using `fmt.Errorf`, and then in the unit test, test only
whether the error was non-nil when you expected an error.