MSTest 4.3.2 visual indicator regression

[nlaslett]

Describe the bug

Starting with MSTest 4.3.x, Assert.AreEqual no longer shows visual diff indicator (^) for strings.

Version used

MSTest 4.3.2

Steps To Reproduce

Call Assert.AreEqual() on two long strings with a single-character difference. The message output still reports the first character difference, such as:

Strings have same length (385) and differ at 1 location(s). First difference at index 337.

but there is no visual indicator like:

________________^

Expected behavior

See the visual indicator.

Actual behavior

No visual indicator.

Additional context

Love this feature when working with long fixed-width data format! Hopefully this is just a simple regression.

[Evangelink]

We dropped it because we had a bunch of reports that not having the full text was problematic and when we implemented the new layout for assertions taking into consideration all remarks it felt like this would just duplicate content to have the message, a small diff and the full actual/expected printed.

I am totally open to suggestions on how we could make something that fits most of people (even if we need some options). We even created this #6771 to allow for a capacity to plug diff tools.

[nlaslett]

Thanks for the quick feedback! Perfectly happy to live without it and code my own response, but I don't remember this implementation dropping the full text. Even for very long strings I remember it showing the full values, with the __^ indicator pointing to the first diff. I'm viewing in the Test Explorer in VS 2026. The implementation I am remembering didn't show any small diff; it showed the two strings in full, side by side, with the ___^ indicator below.

[nlaslett]

Or if I am remembering wrong, and it was truncated, would it be possible to add the diff indicator under the full strings that are currently shown? That would be great!