org.hamcrest
Interface Matcher<T>

All Superinterfaces:

SelfDescribing

All Known Implementing Classes:

AllOf, AnyOf, BaseMatcher, CombinableMatcher, DescribedAs, Is, IsAnything, IsCollectionContaining, IsEqual, IsInstanceOf, IsNot, IsNull, IsSame, StringContains, SubstringMatcher, TypeSafeMatcher

public interface Matcher<T>
extends SelfDescribing

A matcher over acceptable values. A matcher is able to describe itself to give feedback when it fails.

Matcher implementations should NOT directly implement this interface. Instead, extend the BaseMatcher abstract class, which will ensure that the Matcher API can grow to support new features and remain compatible with all Matcher implementations.

For easy access to common Matcher implementations, use the static factory methods in CoreMatchers.

See Also:

CoreMatchers, BaseMatcher

Method Summary

void	_dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_() This method simply acts a friendly reminder not to implement Matcher directly and instead extend BaseMatcher.
boolean	matches(Object item) Evaluates the matcher for argument item.

Methods inherited from interface org.hamcrest.SelfDescribing

describeTo

Method Detail

matches

boolean matches(Object item)

Evaluates the matcher for argument item.

This method matches against Object, instead of the generic type T. This is because the caller of the Matcher does not know at runtime what the type is (because of type erasure with Java generics). It is down to the implementations to check the correct type.

Parameters:

item - the object against which the matcher is evaluated.

Returns:

true if item matches, otherwise false.

See Also:

BaseMatcher

_dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_

void _dont_implement_Matcher___instead_extend_BaseMatcher_()

This method simply acts a friendly reminder not to implement Matcher directly and instead extend BaseMatcher. It's easy to ignore JavaDoc, but a bit harder to ignore compile errors .

See Also:

for reasons why., BaseMatcher