The Explicitly DSL

Scalactic's Explicitly trait provides the “explicitly DSL,” which facilitates the explicit specification of an Equality[T] or a Uniformity[T] where Equality[T] is taken implicitly.

The Explicitly DSL can be used with the === and !== operators of Scalactic as well as the should equal, be, contain, and === syntax of ScalaTest matchers.

If you want to customize equality for a type in general, you would likely want to place an implicit Equality[T] for that type in scope (or in T's companion object). That implicit equality definition will then be picked up and used when that type is compared for equality with the equal, be, and contain matchers in ScalaTest tests and with === in both tests and production code. If you just want to use a custom equality for a single comparison, however, you may prefer to pass it explicitly. For example, if you have an implicit Equality[String] in scope, you can force a comparison to use the default equality with this syntax:

// In production code:
if ((result === "hello")(decided by defaultEquality)) true else false

// In tests:
result should equal ("hello") (decided by defaultEquality)

The explicitly DSL also provides support for specifying a one-off equality that is based on a normalization. For example, Scalactic offers a StringNormalizations trait that provides methods such as trimmed and lowerCased that return Uniformity[String] instances that normalize by trimming and lower-casing, respectively. If you bring those into scope by mixing in or importing the members of StringNormalizations, you could use the explicitly DSL like this:

// In production code:
if ((result === "hello")(after being lowerCased)) true else false

// In tests:
result should equal ("hello") (after being lowerCased and trimmed)

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