Hamcrest is a neat little library that lets you write more fluent and readable tests. For example, rather than writing:

    assertEquals("red", color);

you would write:

    assertThat(color,is("red"));

This makes for tests that express their intent much more clearly, which in turn makes the tests easier to understand and to maintain, and more likely to be correct. This is generally considered to be a Good Thing.

A version of Hamcrest is actually bundled with JUnit. However it is somewhat dated, and the more recent versions of Hamcrest come with a lot more features, particularly with regards to working with collections. You can use the latest version of Hamcrest by using the junit-dep dependency instead of junit, and configuring your dependencies as shown here:

 <dependency>
	    <groupId>junit</groupId>
	    <artifactId>junit-dep</artifactId>
	    <version>4.10</version>
	    <scope>test</scope>
	    <exclusions>
	        <exclusion>
	            <groupId>org.hamcrest</groupId>
	            <artifactId>hamcrest-core</artifactId>
	        </exclusion>
	    </exclusions>
	</dependency>
	<dependency>
	    <groupId>org.hamcrest</groupId>
	    <artifactId>hamcrest-library</artifactId>
	    <version>1.3.RC2</version>
	</dependency>

You can check the size of a collection directly:

    List colors = Arrays.asList("red","green","blue");
    assertThat(colors, hasSize(3));

You can also check the exact contents of a collection:

 List colors = Arrays.asList("red","green","blue");
    assertThat(colors, contains("red", "green", "blue"));

This last example checks both the contents and the order of the collection. If you are only interested in the contents, you can use containsInAnyOrder:

   List colors = Arrays.asList("red","green","blue");
    assertThat(colors, containsInAnyOrder("green", "red", "blue"));

 

You can also check that a condition is true for every item in a list:

    List ages = Arrays.asList(21, 25,30);
    assertThat(ages, everyItem(greaterThan(18)));

This version is a release candidate, so there might be a few rough edges before the final version. And since the artifact names have changed, you need to be careful to exclude any references to hamcrest-all used by other libraries (lambdaj, for example, uses Hamcrest).

 

From http://weblogs.java.net/blog/johnsmart/archive/2011/12/12/some-useful-new-hamcrest-matchers-collections