Trying to compare Home Object to String Object in unit testing

Question

I'm trying to test whether a method works or not in my unit testing. As seen in the code below in my error, I'm trying to compare my Home Object to my String Object and when printing out both of them, they are certainly equal to each other. My question is how do I change my Home Object to be a String Object or my String Object to be a Home Object so the test passes. Also if it helps this is in-memory database testing too. Thanks!

Unit testing code

from unittest import TestCase
from main import ContactApp
from database import CombinedDatabase, Home, Person, Location, Contact

     class TestContactApp(TestCase):
         def test_commit_data(self):
         url = CombinedDatabase.construct_in_memory_url()
         contact_database = CombinedDatabase(url)
         contact_database.ensure_tables_exist()
         session = contact_database.create_session()
         home_address = Home(address='3069 U St.')
         patient1 = Person(patient_name='Mike Piazza')
         ContactApp.commit_data(session, str(patient1), str(home_address), '456324A', 96.4, 'USA',  'Nebraska', 'Omaha', '54229')
         actual = session.query(Home).one()
         actual2 = session.query(Person).one()
         print(home_address, actual.address)
         self.assertEqual(home_address, actual.address)
         self.assertEqual(patient1, actual2.patient_name)

Error

<database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48> <database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48>
#printed out objects

<database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48> != <database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48>

<database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48>
<database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48>
<Click to see difference>

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/cse/Pycharmedu2019.1.1/pycharm-edu-2019.1.1/helpers/pycharm/teamcity/diff_tools.py", line 32, in _patched_equals
old(self, first, second, msg)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/unittest/case.py", line 829, in assertEqual
assertion_func(first, second, msg=msg)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.6/unittest/case.py", line 822, in _baseAssertEqual
raise self.failureException(msg)
AssertionError: <database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48> != '<database.Home object at 0x7fe4ae20ce48>'

Answer 1

You can convert your Home object into a String by defining a __str__ method. This will get called whenever you run str(home):

class Home:
    def __init__(self, address):
        self.address = address

    def __str__(self):
        return self.address


def main():
    address = '3069 U St.'
    my_home = Home(address=address)
    print(my_home)  # Prints '3069 U St.' because printing converts to a String
    print(my_home == address)  # False, because my_home is a Home, not a String
    print(str(my_home) == address)  # True, because we defined the __str__ method

If you don't want to convert it to a string every time, you can also move that logic into the __eq__ method, which will get called whenever you test for equality:

class Home:
    def __init__(self, address):
        self.address = address

    def __eq__(self, other):
        if isinstance(other, str):
            return other == self.address
        elif isinstance(other, Home):
            return other.address == self.address
        else:
            return False


def main():
    address = '3069 U St.'
    my_home = Home(address=address)
    print(my_home == address)  # True, because we redefined what equality means