Current httpexpect API suffers from a problem: it's not always clear what a method returns: the same object on which it was called, or a new object.

To address this problem, two steps will be done:

• method naming will be unified, so that it's easy to guess from the name what is returned
• a new set of methods will be added for inspecting nested objects using callbacks, so that you can write a bit more verbose but also more structured assertions, if you want

This issue is for the first part; the second will be tracked in a separate issue.

Renaming methods will be a gradual process. A few subsequent releases will add methods with new names and mark old methods as deprecated. All deprecated methods will be kept until release of v3. There will be a time window between deprecations and release of v3 so that the users have time to update.

The following naming convention is suggested:

• assertions - IsXxx(), InXxx(), HasXxx(), ContainsXxx(), ConsistsXxx()

  Methods that perform a check on the object and return the same object, will all have distinguishable prefixes listed above. Examples: IsEmpty, InRange, HasSuffix, ContainsAny. Many of these methods are already named this way.

• converters - AsXxx()

  Methods that convert given object to another type and return it, will have prefix As. Examples: AsNumber, AsDateTime. All such methods are already named this way.

• accessors - Noun()

  Methods that extract another (new) object from the given one and return it, will keep their names and will be named just as nouns. Examples: Body, Form, Element.

  I was thinking about given them a prefix as well (e.g. GetXxx), but this would break too much code and significantly harm brevity.

Actual renames to be done:

• All: Empty => IsEmpty (2.11.0)
• All: Equal* => IsEqual* (2.11.0)
• Boolean: True, False => IsXxx (2.12.0)
• Value: Null => IsNull (2.12.0)
• Array: Element => Value (2.13.0)
• Object: ValueEqual => HasValue (2.13.0)
• Response: ContentType, ContentEncoding, TransferEncoding => HasXxx (2.16.0)
• Match: Index => Submatch (2.17.0)
• Match: Name => NamedSubmatch (2.17.0)
• Match: Values => HasSubmatches (2.17.0)
• Cookie: HasMaxAge => ContainsMaxAge (2.17.0)
• All: Gt, Ge, Lt, Le => IsXx (2.18.0)
• Response: Status => HasStatus (2.18.0)
• Response: StatusRange, StatusList => HasStatusInXxx (2.18.0)
• WebsocketMessage: Is<TYPE>, HasType, HasCode