Cucumber

HOW

CUCUMBER FITS INTO BDD?

In this blog, we will learn about how cucumber fits into BDD and helps to develop and automate tests. 

WHAT IS CUCUMBER?

Cucumber is a popular tool for implementing Behavior Driven Development (BDD). BDD is an approach to software development that emphasizes collaboration and communication between developers, testers, and business stakeholders, with the goal of ensuring that software is developed based on the desired behaviors or outcomes. Cucumber provides a framework for implementing BDD by allowing stakeholders to describe the expected behavior of a system in a human-readable format called Gherkin.

In Cucumber, Gherkin is used to write feature files that describe the behavior of the system from the perspective of the user. These feature files contain scenarios, which are concrete examples of how the system should behave in certain situations. Each scenario is written in a specific format that includes a Given-When-Then structure. The Given section sets up the initial conditions of the scenario, the When section describes the actions that are taken, and the Then section specifies the expected outcome.

Cucumber uses these feature files to generate automated tests that can be executed against the software being developed. The automated tests are designed to verify that the system behaves as expected based on the scenarios described in the feature files. By using Cucumber to implement BDD, development teams can ensure that the software they are building meets the desired behaviors and outcomes, while also promoting collaboration and communication among team members.

HOW TO WRITE CUCUMBER TESTS?

Cucumber is a tool for writing acceptance tests that are based on behavior-driven development (BDD) principles. In order to write cucumber tests, you will need to follow these general steps:

Define the feature: First, define the feature that you want to test. This should be a user story or a specific functionality that you want to test.

Write the scenario: Write a scenario that describes the specific behavior you want to test. The scenario should be written in a natural language format, using Gherkin syntax.

Define the steps: Write the steps that are necessary to execute the scenario. These steps should be written in a way that is easy to understand and should be broken down into small, discrete tasks.

Implement the steps: Implement the steps that you have defined in the previous step. These steps can be written in any programming language that supports cucumber.

Run the tests: Run the tests to verify that they are working as expected. If there are any failures, you will need to debug and fix the code.

Here's an example of how you can write a cucumber test for a simple login feature:

In the above example, the feature is "Login" and there are two scenarios: "Valid Login" and "Invalid Login". Each scenario has its own set of steps that are defined using the Given-When-Then syntax. The steps can be implemented using any programming language that supports cucumber, such as Ruby or Java. Once the steps have been implemented, the tests can be run to verify that they are working correctly.

HOW TO AUTOMATE CUCUMBER SCENARIOS?

To automate cucumber tests, you will need to follow these general steps:

• Choose a test automation framework: Choose a test automation framework that is compatible with cucumber, such as Selenium, Appium, or Protractor.
• Configure your environment: Install the necessary drivers and libraries required for the automation framework you have chosen.
• You may need to configure your environment variables, such as setting up the path for the driver executables.
• Write the test code: Write the code that will automate the cucumber tests using the chosen automation framework. This code will execute the steps defined in the cucumber feature files.
• Run the tests: Run the tests using the automation framework. This will execute the cucumber tests and generate the test results.

Here's an example of how you can automate the cucumber test we defined earlier using Selenium and Java:

• Add the necessary dependencies to your project for Selenium and Cucumber-JVM.
• Configure your environment by downloading the Selenium WebDriver executable for the browser you want to test and adding it to your system path.
• Write the test code:

• Implement the code:

• Run the tests: Run the tests using the test runner for your chosen automation framework. This will execute the cucumber tests and generate the test results. 

By following these steps, you can automate your cucumber tests and integrate them into your continuous integration pipeline.