A while back, I asked the Cucumber team for the ability to call in the steps of one scenario from another.
The canonical example of this is the ‘log in’ scenario:
Scenario: User logs in Given there is a User whose username is "matt" And I follow "log in" And I enter "matt" in "username" And I enter the User's password in "password" And I press "Log In" Then I should be logged in And I should see the text "Hello matt"
Phew. Now obviously I don’t want all this noise in the scenario every time I specify behaviour that requires a logged in user. I want to write something like this:
Scenario: User views their dashboard Given I am logged in And I follow the "dashboard" link Then I should see "This is your dashboard"
Thanks to the fabulous creativity of the Cucumber community, this is now possible. It’s also highly recommended, as it’s a great way to help you keep your step files tidy and DRY of excess duplication.
Given /I am logged in/ do
Given "there is a User"
Given "I follow \"log in\""
Given "I enter \"#{User.first.username}\" in \"username\""
Given "I enter \"#{User.first.password}\" in \"password\""
Given "I press \"Log In\""
end
I’m doing this more and more now - writing simple ‘building block’ steps and assembling them to make steps that read nicely and make sense to the stakeholders.
Aslak Hellesøy
| 11-Feb-09 at 3:01 pm | Permalink
When I have lots of quotes, I prefer this:
Given %{I enter “#{User.first.username}” in “username”}
Matt
| 11-Feb-09 at 9:55 pm | Permalink
You just put some extra shine on my Ruby! Thanks Aslak
Wes
| 08-Apr-09 at 10:00 am | Permalink
i know this thread is old but what about scenarios that require reuse of a set of data. My example is a set of flights. I have several scenarios for delaying, canceling, or other scheduling based actions that all need a set of flights over time that are affected by the actions. I would like to define this set in one place and reuse them in the different scenarios probably using a Background: type given scenario. Is there a way to do this or a better suggestion for handling this?
Matt
| 08-Apr-09 at 9:36 pm | Permalink
Hi Wes,
It definitely sounds like Background would fit well for you - you can set up the data in the background then carry out different actions on it in different scenarios. The advantage of doing this is your tests are very clear about the data being set up. The disadvantage is that you can’t vary that data at all in the different scenarios. Spelling out the data to use can also be a bit noisy - sometimes the specific data you use doesn’t matter - you just want the general sense of the state of the system.
See this excellent post by Ben Mabey on that subject.
Robby on Rails : 20 articles on Cucumber and a free beverage recipe! | 10-Apr-09 at 4:32 am | Permalink
[...] DRY up your Cucumber Steps, Matt Wynne [...]
Alexis Perrier
| 18-Apr-09 at 9:06 am | Permalink
Thanks a lot, very useful. A must have if your serious about testing I was trying to find your article using “cucumber nested given” on google which didn’t work. So I thought i’d add the keywords in the comment.
Paul Jensen
| 27-May-09 at 8:59 am | Permalink
Thanks for the post, I was in the same place of reusing steps for testing user authentication with authlogic.
Mark’s Link Blog » links for 2009-06-09 | 10-Jun-09 at 7:05 am | Permalink
[...] blog.mattwynne.net : DRY up your Cucumber Steps (tags: testing cucumber bdd tdd dry) [...]