A short summary of the new things in the Cucumber testing framework

1. How green is my cucumber?
Monday, 2 November 2009

2. Refactoring the Cuke
Latest version is 0.4.x
Breaks things
Fixes things
Adds new things
Different approach
We need to refactor our Cucumber setup and usage
Monday, 2 November 2009

3. Breakages
Cucumber::Rails.bypass_rescue
Cucumber::Rails.use_transactional_fixtures
Monday, 2 November 2009

4. New - Tags
@no-txn tag
used to turn off normal transactions for scenarios
we can use with database cleaner via tagged hooks
@allow-rescue tag
allows errors to be caught be Rails (not Cucumber)
Monday, 2 November 2009

5. New - Multiline Tables
allows tables as arguments for steps
not the same as scenario outlines
Monday, 2 November 2009

6. Given the following people exist:
| name | email | phone |
| Aslak | aslak@email.com | 123 |
| Joe | joe@email.com | 234 |
| Bryan | bryan@email.org | 456 |
Given /the following people exist:/ do |people_table|
people_table.hashes.each do |hash|
# The first time the +hash+ will contain:
# {'name' => 'Aslak', 'email' => 'aslak@email.com', 'phone' => '123'}
# The second time:
# {'name' => 'Joe', 'email' => 'joe@email.com', 'phone' => '234'}
# etc.
end
end
Monday, 2 November 2009

7. New - Diff’ing Tables
can compare a table argument to another table
typically done in a Then step
new convenience Webrat method that turns a HTML table
into an Array of Array:
expected_cukes_table.diff!(table_at('#cuke_table').to_a)
Monday, 2 November 2009

8. Then I should see the following cukes:
| Latin | English |
| Cucumis sativus | Cucumber |
| Cucumis anguria | Burr Gherkin |
Then /^I should see the following cukes:$/ do |expected_cukes_table|
actual_table = [
['Latin', 'English'],
['Cucumis sativus', 'Concombre'],
['Cucumis anguria', 'Burr Gherkin']
] # In practice you'd pull this out of a web page or database
expected_cukes_table.diff!(actual_table)
end
Monday, 2 November 2009

9. New - Multiline Strings
uses PyString syntax of three double-quote marks
text automatically yielded as last parameter of step definition
Monday, 2 November 2009

10. Given a blog post named "Random" with Markdown body
"""
Some Title, Eh?
==============
Here is the first paragraph of my blog post. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit.
"""
Given /^a blog post named "([^"]*)" with Markdown body$/ do |title,
markdown|
Post.create!(:title => title, :body => markdown)
end
Monday, 2 November 2009

11. New - Webrat Steps
extra default webrat steps including:
“Then show me the page”
see within eg Then I should see “text” within “selector”
see regex eg Then I should see /regex/
Given I am on, When I go to, Then I should be on ...
When I fill in the following (table of form values)
Monday, 2 November 2009

12. New - Step Transforms
Step argument transforms
helps DRY up step definitions
see for more info:
http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber/step-
argument-transforms
and:
http://www.engineyard.com/blog/2009/cucumber-step-
argument-transforms/
Monday, 2 November 2009

13. New - PDF Formatter
use --format pdf --out filename.pdf
requires prawn
Monday, 2 November 2009

14. New - Screenshots
selenium only
webrat method:
save_and_open_screengrab
Monday, 2 November 2009

15. The New Cucumber Way
env.rb is expected to be managed by Cucumber
custom code should be put into separate files
Monday, 2 November 2009

16. env.rb
big warning message
transactional fixtures
allow rescue
cucumber settings
webrat settings
Monday, 2 November 2009

17. # IMPORTANT: This file was generated by Cucumber 0.4.0
# Edit at your own peril - it's recommended to regenerate this file
# in the future when you upgrade to a newer version of Cucumber.
# Consider adding your own code to a new file instead of editing this one.
Monday, 2 November 2009

18. ENV["RAILS_ENV"] ||= "cucumber"
require File.expand_path(File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../config/environment')
require 'cucumber/rails/world'
Monday, 2 November 2009

19. Cucumber::Rails::World.use_transactional_fixtures = true
Monday, 2 November 2009

20. ActionController::Base.allow_rescue = false
Monday, 2 November 2009

21. require 'cucumber'
require 'cucumber/formatter/unicode'
require 'cucumber/webrat/element_locator'
require 'cucumber/rails/rspec'
Monday, 2 November 2009

22. require 'webrat'
require 'webrat/core/matchers'
Webrat.configure do |config|
config.mode = :rails
config.open_error_files = false
end
Monday, 2 November 2009

23. New AMC Cuking Way
cucumber.yml can now exist in config directory
pickle, machinist, webrat, sphinx, db cleaner, and stubbing all
separate files
env.rb is now pristine
no more manual updating
to update cucumber simply script/generate cucumber
Monday, 2 November 2009

24. cucumber.yml
moved to config directory
profiles simplfied
default
selenium
no more sphinx profile
Textmate shell variable TM_CUCUMBER_OPTS changed
Monday, 2 November 2009

25. default:
-t ~@selenium
-r features
RAILS_ENV=test
Monday, 2 November 2009

26. selenium:
-t @selenium
-r features
RAILS_ENV=test
WEBRAT_MODE=selenium
Monday, 2 November 2009

27. $ cucumber
$ cucumber -t ~@no-txn
$ cucumber -p selenium
$ cucumber -t @sphinx
Monday, 2 November 2009

28. TM_CUCUMBER_OPTS:
-t ~@selenium,~@sphinx
-r features
--format html
Monday, 2 November 2009

29. Pickle & Machinst
Pickle
moved to features/support/pickle.rb
but script/generate pickle automatically appends to env.rb
Machinist
moved to features/support/machinist.rb
Monday, 2 November 2009

30. Database Cleaner
separated out to features/support/db_cleaner.rb
used by all non-transactional scenarios eg sphinx & selenium
uses tagged before and after hooks (@no-txn) to clean the
database
Monday, 2 November 2009

31. Sphinx
remains at features/support/sphinx.rb
scenarios that use sphinx must be tagged with @sphinx AND
@no-txn so that these features are not run in a transaction
database cleaning pulled out into database_cleaner.rb
still use tagged before hook to reindex
uses at_exit to stop searchd
searchd runs on its own port specified in sphinx.yml
Monday, 2 November 2009

32. Webrat & Selenium
remains in features/support/webrat.rb
webrat can only run in rails or selenium mode (not both at the
same time)
we use ENV[‘WEBRAT_MODE’] in profiles in set selenium
mode
defaults to rails mode
selenium scenarios tagged with @selenium AND @no-txn
Monday, 2 November 2009

33. Extras
moved to features/support/env_extra.rb
enable RSpec's stubbing support, specifically for stubbing
Time.now
with RSpec 1.2.8, enabling stubbing is now a single require
Monday, 2 November 2009

34. require 'spec/stubs/cucumber'
Monday, 2 November 2009

35. Using Multiple Cukes
unpacked cucumber gem into /vendor/gems
cuke bash function
selectively uses vendored of system cucumber binary
overcomes problems with using different cucumbers on
different projects and having new versions of cucumber
breaking your project’s features
Monday, 2 November 2009

36. function cuke {
vendor_cuke_path="vendor/gems/cucumber*/bin/cucumber"
if [ -x $vendor_cuke_path ]; then
eval $vendor_cuke_path $@
else
cucumber $@
fi
}
Monday, 2 November 2009

37. http://www.flickr.com/photos/knittingskwerlgurl/3731055596/
Monday, 2 November 2009