Introduction

Hamcrest consists of different jars matching the different needs of applications. This document describes these distributables and the functionality contained in each of them.

Overview of distributables

hamcrest-core.jar

This is the core API to be used by third-party framework providers. This includes a foundation set of matcher implementations for common operations. This API is stable and will rarely change. You will need this library as a minimum.

hamcrest-library.jar

The ever-growing library of Matcher implementations which are based on the core functionality in hamcrest-core.jar. This will grow between releases.

hamcrest-generator.jar

A tool to allow many Matcher implementations to be combined into a single class with static methods returning the different matchers so users don't have to remember many classes/packages to import. Generates code. This library is only used internally at compile time. It is not necessary for the use of any of the other hamcrest libraries at runtime.

hamcrest-integration.jar

Provides integration between Hamcrest and other testing tools, including JUnit (3 and 4), TestNG, jMock and EasyMock. Uses hamcrest-core.jar and hamcrest-library.jar.

hamcrest-all.jar

One jar containing all classes of all the other jars.

Maven-Versions

The description above also applies to the hamcrest Maven artifacts. The dependencies of the jars (hamcrest-integration uses hamcrest-library which uses hamcrest-core) is represented by the Maven dependency mechanism. There is no hamcrest-all library in the Maven repo. Just use hamcrest-integration which references all the other hamcrest libraries.