Compare two lists, dictionaries in easy way

Question

How to compare two lists or dictionaries in easy way,

eg.

assert orig_list == new_list

If I want to check two lists in python nose tests,

Is there any built-in function can let me use?

Does compare two lists is a bad practice when doing testing ?(because I've never see it)

If there is no built-in, plugin in nose, is there any handy package can do it for me.

Answer 1

You can use assertListEqual(a, b) and assertDictEqual(a, b) from the unittest library.

Answer 2

set is used to do that between two lists/dicts!

set(orig_list) & set(new_list)

Answer 3

This is one way to do it. Manually checking every element for equality.

(len(a) == len(b)) and  (all(ai == bi for ai,bi in zip(a,b)))