Cucumber

Cucumber is a testing tool that supports Behavior Driven Development

(BDD) framework. It defines application behavior using simple English
text, defined by a language called Gherkin.

Cucumber allows automation functional validation that is easily read and

understood. Cucumber was initially implemented in Ruby and then
extended to Java framework. Both the tools support native JUnit.

In order to get better advantage of the software testing, organizations

are nowadays taking a step forward. They implement important
acceptance test scenarios while development is in-progress. This
approach is commonly known as Behavior Driven
Development (BDD).

Behavior Driven Development gives us an opportunity to create test

scripts from both the developer’s and the customer’s perspective as well.
So in the beginning, developers, project managers, QAs, user acceptance
testers and the product owner (stockholder), all get together and
brainstorm about which test scenarios should be passed in order to call
this software/application successful. This way they come up with a set of
test scenarios. All these test scripts are in simple English language, so it
serves the purpose of documentation also.

Example
If we are developing a user authentication feature, then the following can
be few key test scenarios, which needs to get passed in order to call it a
success.

 The user should be able to login with correct username and correct password.
 The user should not be able to login with incorrect username and correct
password.
 The user should not be able to login with correct username and incorrect
password.

How it Works
By the time the code is ready, test scripts are ready too. The code has to
pass the test scripts defined in BDD. If it does not happen, code
refactoring will be needed. Code gets freezed only after successful
execution of defined test scripts.
It is a very simple notion, but what we need in order to get this concept
implemented. The answer is, Behavior Driven Development (BDD)
Framework. Cucumber is one such open source tool, which supports
behavior driven development. To be more precise, Cucumber can be
defined as a testing framework, driven by plain English text. It serves as
documentation, automated tests, and a development aid – all in one.

So what does Cucumber do? It can be described in the following steps −

Cucumber reads the code written in plain English text (Language Gherkin
– to be introduced later in this tutorial) in the feature file (to be
introduced later).

It finds the exact match of each step in the step definition (a code file -
details provided later in the tutorial).

The piece of code to be executed can be different software frameworks

like Selenium, Ruby on Rails, etc. Not every BDD framework tool
supports every tool.

This has become the reason for Cucumber's popularity over other
frameworks, like JBehave, JDave, Easyb, etc.

Cucumber supports over a dozen different software platforms like −

 Ruby on Rails
  Selenium

 PicoContainer

 Spring Framework

 Watir

Advantages of Cucumber Over Other Tools

 Cucumber supports different languages like Java.net and Ruby.
 It acts as a bridge between the business and technical language. We can
accomplish this by creating a test case in plain English text.
 It allows the test script to be written without knowledge of any code, it allows
the involvement of non-programmers as well.
 It serves the purpose of end-to-end test framework unlike other tools.
 Due to simple test script architecture, Cucumber provides code reusability.

Features
A Feature can be defined as a standalone unit or functionality of a
project. Let’s take a very common example of a social networking site.
How does the feature of this product/project look like? Few basic features
can be determined as −

 Create and remove the user from the social networking site.
 User login functionality for the social networking site.
 Sharing photos or videos on the social networking site.
 Sending a friend request.
 Logout.

By now, it is clear that, each independent functionality of the product

under test can be termed as a feature when we talk about Cucumber. It
is a best practice later when you start testing, that before deriving the
test scripts, we should determine the features to be tested.

A feature usually contains a list of scenarios to be tested for that feature.

A file in which we store features, description about the features and
scenarios to be tested is known as Feature File. We will see more about
feature files in the following chapter.

The keyword to represent a feature under test in Gherkins is “Feature”.

The suggested best practice is, to write a small description of the feature
beneath the feature title in the feature file. This will fulfill the need of a
good documentation as well.
Example
Feature − Login functionality for a social networking site.

The user should be able to login into the social networking site if the
username and the password are correct.

The user should be shown the error message if the username and the
password are incorrect.

The user should be navigated to home page, if the username and

password are correct.

Feature Files
The file, in which Cucumber tests are written, is known as feature files.
It is advisable that there should be a separate feature file, for each
feature under test. The extension of the feature file needs to be
“.feature”.

One can create as many feature files as needed. To have an organized

structure, each feature should have one feature file.

For Example −

Sr.No Feature Feature File name

1 User Login userLogin.feature

2 Share the Post sharePost.feature

3 Create Account createAccount.feature

4 Delete Account deleteAccount.feature

The naming convention to be used for feature name, feature file name
depends on the individual’s choice. There is no ground rule in Cucumber
about names.

A simple feature file consists of the following keywords/parts −

 Feature − Name of the feature under test.

 Description (optional) − Describe about feature under test.
 Scenario − What is the test scenario.
  Given − Prerequisite before the test steps get executed.
 When − Specific condition which should match in order to execute the next
step.
 Then − What should happen if the condition mentioned in WHEN is satisfied.

Example
Feature − User login on social networking site.

The user should be able to login into the social networking site when the
username and the password are correct.

The user should be shown an error message when the username and the
password are incorrect.

The user should be navigated to the home page if the username and the
password are correct.

Outline − Login functionality for a social networking site.

The given user navigates to Facebook. When I enter Username as

"<username>" and Password as "<password>". Then, login should be
unsuccessful.
| username | password |
| username1 | password1 |

* AND keyword is used to show conjunction between two

conditions. ANDcan be used with any other keywords like GIVEN,
WHEN and THEN.

There are no logic details written in the feature file.

Steps Definitions
We have got our feature file ready with the test scenarios defined.
However, this is not the complete job done. Cucumber doesn’t really
know which piece of code is to be executed for any specific scenario
outlined in a feature file.

This calls the need of an intermediate – Step Definition file. Steps

definition file stores the mapping between each step of the scenario
defined in the feature file with a code of function to be executed.

So, now when Cucumber executes a step of the scenario mentioned in

the feature file, it scans the step definition file and figures out which
function is to be called.
Example of Step Definition File
public void goToFacebook() {

driver = new FirefoxDriver();

driver.navigate().to("https://www.facebook.com/");

@When "^user logs in using Username as \"([^\"]*)\" and Password as \"([^\"]*)\"$"

public void I_enter_Username_as_and_Password_as(String arg1, String arg2) {

driver.findElement(By.id("email")).sendKeys(arg1);

driver.findElement(By.id("pass")).sendKeys(arg2);

driver.findElement(By.id("u_0_v")).click();

@Then"^login should be unsuccessful$"

public void validateRelogin() {

if(driver.getCurrentUrl().equalsIgnoreCase(

"https://www.facebook.com/login.php?login_attempt=1&lwv=110")){

System.out.println("Test Pass");

} else {

System.out.println("Test Failed");

driver.close();

So with each function, whatever code you want to execute with each test
step (i.e. GIVEN/THEN/WHEN), you can write it within Step Definition
file. Make sure that code/function has been defined for each of the steps.

This function can be Java functions, where we can use both Java and
Selenium commands in order to automate our test steps.

Cucumber with Selenium WebDriver

To run Cucumber test with Java, following are the steps.

Step 1 − Install Java −

 Download jdk and jre from

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/index.html

 Accept license agreement.

 Install JDK and JRE.
 Set environment variable as shown in the following picture.
Step 2 − Install Eclipse IDE −

 Make sure JAVA is installed on your machine.

 Download Eclipse from https://eclipse.org/downloads/
 Unzip and Eclipse installed.

Step 3 − Install Maven −

 Download Maven −https://maven.apache.org/download.cgi

 Unzip the file and remember the location.
 Create environment variable MAVEN_HOME as shown in the following image.

 Edit Path variable and include Maven.

 Download MAVEN plugin from Eclipse
o Open Eclipse.
o Got to Help → Eclipse Marketplace → Search maven → Maven
Integration for Eclipse →INSTALL

Step 4 − Configure Cucumber with Maven.

 Create a Maven project.

o Go to File → New → Others → Maven → Maven Project → Next.
o Provide group Id (group Id will identify your project uniquely across all
projects).
o Provide artifact Id (artifact Id is the name of the jar without version.
You can choose any name which is in lowercase).
o Click on Finish.
Step 5 − Open pom.xml −

 Go to the package explorer on the left hand side of Eclipse.

 Expand the project CucumberTest.
 Locate pom.xml file.
 Right-click and select the option, Open with “Text Editor”.

Step 6 − Add dependency for Selenium − This will indicate Maven, which
Selenium jar files are to be downloaded from the central repository to
the local repository.

 Open pom.xml is in edit mode, create dependencies tag

(<dependencies></dependencies>), inside the project tag.
 Inside the dependencies tag, create dependency tag.
(<dependency></dependency>)
 Provide the following information within the dependency tag.
<dependency>

<groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>

<artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>

<version>2.47.1</version>

</dependency>

Step 7 − Add dependency for Cucumber-Java − This will indicate Maven,
which Cucumber files are to be downloaded from the central repository to
the local repository.

 Create one more dependency tag.

 Provide following information within the dependency tag.

<dependency>

<groupId>info.cukes</groupId>

<artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>

<version>1.0.2</version>

<scope>test</scope>

</dependency>

Step 8 − Add dependency for Cucumber-JUnit − This will indicate

Maven, which Cucumber JUnit files are to be downloaded from the
central repository to the local repository.

 Create one more dependency tag.

 Provide the following information within the dependency tag.

<dependency>

<groupId>info.cukes</groupId>

<artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>

<version>1.0.2</version>

<scope>test</scope>

</dependency>

Step 9− Add dependency for JUnit − This will indicate Maven, which
JUnit files are to be downloaded from the central repository to the local
repository.
  Create one more dependency tag.
 Provide the following information within the dependency tag.

<dependency>

<groupId>junit</groupId>

<artifactId>junit</artifactId>

<version>4.10</version>

<scope>test</scope>

</dependency>

Step 10 − Verify binaries.

 Once pom.xml is edited successfully, save it.

 Go to Project → Clean − It will take a few minutes.
 You will be able to see a Maven repository.

Step 11 − Create a package under src/test/java named

as cucumberJava.

Step 12 − Create feature file

 Select and right-click on the package outline.

 Click on ‘New’ file.
 Give the file a name such as cucumberJava.feature.
 Write the following text within the file and save it.

Feature: CucumberJava

Scenario: Login functionality exists

Given I have open the browser

When I open Facebook website

Then Login button should exits

Step 13 − Create step definition file −

 Select and right-click on the package outline.

 Click on ‘New’ file.
 Give the file name a name such as annotation.java.
 Write the following text within the file and save it.

package CucumberJava;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;

import org.openqa.selenium.firefox.FirefoxDriver;

import cucumber.annotation.en.Given;

import cucumber.annotation.en.Then;

import cucumber.annotation.en.When;

public class cucumberJava {

WebDriver driver = null;

@Given("^I have open the browser$")

public void openBrowser() {

driver = new FirefoxDriver();

@When("^I open Facebook website$")

public void goToFacebook() {

driver.navigate().to("https://www.facebook.com/");

@Then("^Login button should exits$")

public void loginButton() {

if(driver.findElement(By.id("u_0_v")).isEnabled()) {

System.out.println("Test 1 Pass");

} else {

System.out.println("Test 1 Fail");

driver.close();
 }

Step 14 − Create a runner class file.

 Select and right-click on the package outline.

 Click on ‘New’ file.
 Give the file name as runTest.java.
 Write the following text within the file and save it.

package cucumberJava;

import org.junit.runner.RunWith;

import cucumber.junit.Cucumber;

@RunWith(Cucumber.class)

@Cucumber.Options(format = {"pretty", "html:target/cucumber"})

public class runTest { }

Step 15 − Run the test using option −

 Select runTest.java file from the package explorer.

 Right-click and select the option, Run as.
 Select JUnit test.

You will observe the following things upon execution −

 An instance of Firefox web browser will open.

 It will open the Facebook login page on the browser.
 It will detect the login button.
 The browser will close.
 In the JUnit window, you will see a scenario with green tick mark, which
indicates success of the test execution.