1. Practical aspects of UI automation using
Cucumber and Capybara
by Alex Polovinko
3/14/2105
2. Automation frameworks
• What is all this about?
#Software with additional functionality: run: pass/fail
• From complexity to simplicity
#Abstraction is the point.
• Cucumber
# Simple, human collaboration: BDD that talks to
domain experts first and code second
# Cucumber lets software development teams describe
how software should behave in plain text. The text is
written in a business-readable domain-specific
language and serves as documentation, automated
tests and development-aid – all rolled into one format.
• Platforms and permutations
#https://cukes.info/platforms
3. Gherkin and Cucumber
architecture
1. Format for Cucumber Specifications.
#small computer language with a well-defined syntax
2. When you run Cucumber, it will generate a
report that verifies whether or not the software
behaves the way the Gherkin document says.
3. Gherkin DSL and units
#features/scenarios/steps
4. How that works?
5. Additional capabilities:
#flexible step definitions
#tables
#examples
#calling steps from steps
#I18N
4. Capybara
http://www.rubydoc.info/
github/jnicklas/capybara
#Capybara is a library (Gem) written in the Ruby programming
language which makes it easy to simulate how a user interacts with
your application
#Capybara is acting as an abstraction layer over the driver.
Agnostic about the driver running your tests and comes with
Selenium support built in
#Capybara also comes with a built in DSL for creating descriptive
acceptance tests (Intuitive API which mimics the language an
actual user would use):
Navigating/Clicking links and buttons/Interacting with
forms/Querying/Finding/Scoping/Working with
windows/Scripting/Modals/Debugging
https://gist.github.com/zhengjia/428105
http://www.rubydoc.info/github/jnicklas/capybara/master
#Drivers
Capybara uses the same DSL to drive a variety of browser and headless drivers.
Webdriver, native events.
6. Challenges and Lessons learned
• Locators and browser specific Xpaths
• Iframes/windows
• Asynchronous JavaScript (Ajax and friends)
• Cross-site scripting prevention
• SSL alerts/modals handling
• FF profile settings
• Arbitrary JS (visibility of elements, mouse hover), JS engines
• Assertions (RSpec)/soft assertions handling
• State transitioning between steps/execution metadata
• Uniq scenarios and special chars in scenarios
7. Things you need to think of while developing scripts
o Good automation candidate:
#positive
#saving time
#robust
#false negatives
#cost of execution
o Critical/Smoke/Sanity/Regression
o Concept of orthogonal testing/coverage.
o Concept of tags: (wip, stories)
o Environmental variables, scalability, modularity
o Reusablity, common libraries. D(on’t)R(epeat)Y(ouself)
This template can be used as a starter file to give updates for project milestones.
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Label all graphs and tables.
What is the project about?
Define the goal of this project
Is it similar to projects in the past or is it a new effort?
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Is it an independent project or is it related to other projects?
* Note that this slide is not necessary for weekly status meetings
What is the project about?
Define the goal of this project
Is it similar to projects in the past or is it a new effort?
Define the scope of this project
Is it an independent project or is it related to other projects?
* Note that this slide is not necessary for weekly status meetings
What is the project about?
Define the goal of this project
Is it similar to projects in the past or is it a new effort?
Define the scope of this project
Is it an independent project or is it related to other projects?
* Note that this slide is not necessary for weekly status meetings
The following slides show several examples of timelines using SmartArt graphics.
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