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I am currently writing test cases using TestNg. I populate objects using PodamFactory. I have following test case structure.

@Test
public void testIt(){ 
ARespObject resp = PodamFactory.manufacturePojo(ARespObject.class);
String responseXml = new JaxbStringTransformer().transform(resp);
// a new object with all the same data
ARespObject respActual = responder.getObj(responseXml);
Assert.assertTrue(TestUtils.areEqual(respActual , resp));
public static <T extends Object> boolean areEqual(T sourceObj, T target) {
    if (sourceObj == null && target == null) {
        return true;
    if (sourceObj == target) {
        return true;
    if (sourceObj.getClass() != target.getClass()) {
        return false;
    if (sourceObj != null && target != null) {
        return stringifyObject(sourceObj).equals(stringifyObject(target));
    return false;
public static String stringifyObject(Object obj) {
    String result = "";
    ObjectWriter ow = new JaxbJacksonObjectMapper().writer().withDefaultPrettyPrinter();
    try {
        result = ow.writeValueAsString(obj);
    } catch (JsonGenerationException e1) {
        LOG.error(e1);
    } catch (JsonMappingException e1) {
        LOG.error("JsonMappingException: " + e1);
    } catch (IOException e1) {
        LOG.error("IOException: " + e1);
    return result;
I need to know if writeValueAsString(obj) will always provide same structure for both objects(i.e. its output will be stable) and following
stringifyObject(sourceObj).equals(stringifyObject(target));
is a valid check. I am concerned about whether it will ever give me different ordering of variables inside the ARespObject.
Rather than formatting the objects to strings for comparison, convert them to "tree model" (JsonNode implementations). ObjectNode implements equals/hashCode/toString etc to reasonably imitate JSON equivalence, so it will disregard the order of properties for example.
ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
JsonNode treeNode = mapper.convertValue(obj, JsonNode.class);
(typically you will actually get an ObjectNode back, but you can just probably just use the JsonNode interface)
The tree model classes will also perform a simple JSON formatting for toString() output, so "expected" and "actual" printouts should be readable (although not as pretty as with the pretty printer)
                I can NOT update the ARespObject and there are potentially 100 classes which needs to be checked in such test cases
– zur
                Oct 19, 2015 at 13:04
        
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