Strongly Typed Assertions

Strikt's API is designed to work with Kotlin's strong type system.

Strikt's assertion API uses the interface Assertion.Builder<T>, with the generic type T representing the (declared) type of the assertion subject. Assertion functions such as isEqualTo are implemented as extension functions on Assertion.Builder with an appropriate generic type.

For example isEqualTo is an extension function on Assertion.Builder<Any?> as it's useful for many types of subject whereas isEqualToIgnoringCase is an extension function on Assertion.Builder<CharSequence> since it only makes sense to use it on string-like things.

Some assertion functions will return an Assertion.Builder with a different, more specific, generic type to the one they were called on.

Nullable subjects

For example, if the subject of an assertion is a nullable type (in other words it's an Assertion.Builder<T?>) the assertion methods isNull() and isNotNull() are available. The return type of isNotNull() is Assertion.Builder<T> because we now know the subject is not null. You will find IDE code-completion will no longer offer the isNull() and isNotNull() assertion methods.

Narrowing assertions

Another example is making assertions about a subject's specific runtime type, or "narrowing".

For example:

val subject: Map<String, Any> = mapOf("count" to 1, "name" to "Rob")
expectThat(subject["count"])
  .isA<Int>()
  .isGreaterThan(0)

expectThat(subject["name"])
  .isA<String>()
  .hasLength(3)

The return type of the subject map's get() method is Any but using the narrowing assertion isA<T>() we can both assert the type of the value and, because the compiler now knows it is dealing with an Assertion.Builder<String> or an Assertion.Builder<Number>, we can use more specialized assertion methods that are only available for those subject types.

Without the isA<T>() assertion the code would not compile:

val subject: Map<String, Any> = mapOf("count" to 1, "name" to "Rob")
expectThat(subject.get("count"))
  .isGreaterThan(0)
  // isGreaterThan does not exist on Assertion.Builder<Any>

expectThat(subject.get("name"))
  .hasLength(3)
  // hasLength does not exist on Assertion.Builder<Any>

This mechanism means that IDE code-completion is optimally helpful as only assertion methods that are appropriate to the subject type will be suggested.