Help fixing failing Test for Custom Date Util class.

Am having trouble getting a test to pass with a custom date util class I created.

Here's the class (which I know works):

public class CustomDateUtil {
    
    private static final int TENTH_DAY_OF_MONTH = 10;

public static Date calculateStartDate() {
		Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
		int today = cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
	
		if (today <= TENTH_DAY_OF_MONTH) {
	    	// Set two months back.
	    	cal.roll(Calendar.MONTH, -2);
	    	
			// Set the day to the 11th.
	    	cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 11);
			} else {
	    		// Set one month back.
	    		cal.roll(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
	    		
				// Set the day to the 11th.
	    		cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 11);
		 	}
		return cal.getTime();
    }
    
    public static Date calculateEndDate() {
		Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();
		int today = cal.get(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH);
		if (today <= TENTH_DAY_OF_MONTH) {
	    
			// Set one month back.
	    	cal.roll(Calendar.MONTH, -1);
	    
			// Set the day to the 10th.
	    	cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 10);
		} else {
	    	// Just set the day to the 10th.
	    	cal.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 10);
	}
		return cal.getTime();
    }
}

Here's the failing test case:

public class CustomDateUtilTest extends TestCase {
    
    // If today’s date is less than or equal to the 10th day of the month, 
    // set the start date back two months and also set the day to the 11th. 
    // Otherwise, set the start date back one month, 
    // while keeping the day at the 11th.
    public void testStartDate() {
        Calendar actual = new java.util.GregorianCalendar();
        actual.set(Calendar.MONTH, java.util.Calendar.JULY);
        actual.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 11);
        assertEquals("The start dates did not match.", CustomDateUtil.calculateStartDate(), actual.getTime(), );  
    }
    
    // If today’s date is less than or equal to the 10th day of the month, 
    // set the end date back one month but set the day to the 10th.  
    // Otherwise, keep the same month but set the day to the 10th. 
    public void testEndDate() {
	   Calendar actual = new java.util.GregorianCalendar();
	   actual.set(Calendar.MONTH, Calendar.AUGUST);
	   actual.set(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 10);
	   assertEquals("The end dates did not match. ", CustomDateUtil.calculateEndDate(), actual.getTime() );
    }
}

Its the testStartDate() method that fails:

(1) I know that the CustomDateUtil works but was wondering why I can't seem to get the test to pass?

(2) What's the best way to test multiple hard coded dates?

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

Heck, testStartDate() won't even compile: please PostRealCode.

Did you check the millisecond values yourself to see if they're the same?

I did post real code... The only thing I didn't post was the imports... I copied and pasted the code from Eclipse. I am using JUnit 3.8.1.

Does the millisecond really have to be precise?

Does that mean that its impossible to test two generated Date references?

It compiles with the spurious comma?

Of course it doesn't mean you can't compare dates--it means if you do, and you're using its equals() method, that you have to follow its definition of equality.

David,

Thanks for looking into this... I don't have the spurious comma in my code.
I accidentally inserted it there when I was editing my posting.

Of course it doesn't mean you can't compare dates--it means if you do, and you're using its equals() method, that you have to follow its definition of equality.

Can you please elaborate on this?

By the way, I commented out the first test method and the second one failed as well (with the same type of failure message).

Could anyone please point me in the right direction? What am I possibly doing wrong?

Got it working!

This posting, Compare Date Objects With Different Levels of Precision, from StackOverflow helped out a lot!

It was the milliseconds that played the problem.

Decided to use DateUtils.truncate() method from Apache Commons.

Here's the working code:

Now, if I break the test by setting DAY_OF_MONTH to 12, it displays this (take a look at the truncated seconds):

David thanks for all of your help and hopefully this posting will fall into the hands of someone else that might need compare dates using Java in the future!

It's simple. The test failed because the two dates you created were not equal.

You printed out parts of those two dates, and the parts you printed were equal. So it follows that the parts you didn't
print were not equal. Hence David's reference to "milliseconds"...