There tends to be a strong ongoing association between Agile and Open-Source automation tools today. Many make good inroads on the attempt to connect the elaboration of requirements with automated tests, step for step. This way, the test is performing as closely as possible, what the client actually asked for, or agreed in the elaboration process.
One such tool is Cucumber. It is designed to allow you to execute feature documentation written in plain text. In this article, I will detail a concise example, hopefully demonstrating the simplicity and effectiveness of this tool as well as value to the agile methodology.
Prerequisites: It is assumed that before using this example you have the following Installed:
• Ruby
• Watir gem for Ruby
• Cucumber gem for Ruby
I will use a simple example that uses the Google search engine in this case:
Let’s say the user story is something like:
‘When I go to the Google search page, and search for an item, I expect to see some reference to that item in the result summary.’
Cucumber uses the keywords “Given”, “When”, “And” “Then” to build this into useable syntax.
So I create for example, a file, called GoogleSearch.feature containing:
Feature:
‘When I go to the Google search page, and search for an item, I expect to see some reference to that item in the result summary.’
Scenario:
Given that I have gone to the Google page
When I add “cats” to the search box
And click the Search Button
Then “cats” should be mentioned in the results
Scenario:
Given that I have gone to the Google page
When I add “dogs” to the search box
And click the Search Button
Then “dogs” should be mentioned in the results
Now I create a file GoogleSearch.rb containing the following
require “rubygems”
require “watir”
Given /^that I have gone to the Google page$/ do
@browser=Watir::IE.new
@browser.goto(“www.google.com”)
end
When /^I add “(.*)” to the search box$/ do |item|
@browser.text_field(:name,”q”).set( item)
end
And /^click the Search Button$/ do
@browser.button(:name, “btnG”).click
end
Then /^”(.*)” should be mentioned in the results$/ do |item|
@browser.text.should include(item)
end
This gives us executable code for every Given, When and Then statement we have used.
To run it we issue the following command line
cucumber GoogleSearch.feature
or for a nice html formatted result
cucumber GoogleSearch.feature –format html –out result.html
AutoTestGeek 
Hi Keith,
My name is Mauri, I am a non-technical tester who’s trying to start doing some automation and find it quite confusing to understand what tools do what. In this case, why do you need Watir? Is Cucumber not able to manage browsers by itself? Are they complementary tools or basically can do the same?
Thanks!
Mauri
Hi Mauri,
Thank you for your question.
WATIR (Web application Testing in Ruby), by itself, will allow you to use code to interact with web applications, by controlling the browser.
Cucumber is a framework that controls how and when to run that code. You could write cucumber tests that work with non-web applications, hence no need for Watir.
For example a watir script without a test framework could be:
(checking to see if the google homepage loads)
require 'watir'@Browser=Watir::IE.new
@Browser.goto "http://www.google.com"
if not @Browser.text_field(:name,"q").exists?
then
puts "I can't see that textfield, page must not have loaded correctly"
else
puts "found it , test passed"
end
all that if not/then/else/end syntax would be tiresome and messy for a large set of tests. So we could use something like test-unit to manage it
require 'test/unit'require 'watir'
class Test_google <Test::Unit::TestCase
def test_homepage
@Browser=Watir::IE.new
@Browser.goto "http://www.google.com"
assert(@Browser.text_field(:name,"q").exists?,"Error opening Homepage")
end
end
When we run this to pass we get :
Started.
Finished in 3.792807 seconds.
1 tests, 1 assertions, 0 failures, 0 errors, 0 skips
We have more more control over the test process here, but to achieve this you see that we have to combine WATIR with some kind of test framework.
Cucumber is simply a more elaborate test framework than test-unit.
I would suggest getting familiar with WATIR without cucumber to begin, parhaps with test unit as in the second example..
Thanks a lot for the answer! The more I read it, the clearer I see it. Also, thanks for the tip on starting with Watir first, I’ll give it a try.
hey Keith, your reply to Mauri was really precise and upto the point. Even I had the same doubt and your reply cleared me everything. 🙂
Hi guys,
Thanks for the help, I am also messed with the mauri’s question.. and got excellent answer from here
Thanks a lot!!
hi
im new in cucumber and watir…can you help me please ?
regards
Hi,
I tried to run example but it always fails with this error:
—
Then “cats” should be mentioned in the results # GoogleSearch.rb:16
undefined method `include’ for # (NoMethodError)
./GoogleSearch.rb:17:in `/^”(.*)” should be mentioned in the results$/’
GoogleSearch.feature:8:in `Then “cats” should be mentioned in the results’
—
It happens on the line “@browser.text.should include(item)”
I tried googling it but I didn’t find anything (I couldn’t even find a reference for this ‘include’ method)
I was suggested this website by my cousin. I am not sure whether
this post is written by him as nobody else know such detailed about my problem.
You are wonderful! Thanks!
Hey Keith!
Correct me If I’m wrong, but could we say that Cucumber Framework basically allows the tester to set one script for several scenarios instead of having to write down one by one?
Pablo. Yes that is one feature. But its main advantage is in the type of syntax used to structure scenarios.
Thank you very much Kieth. Please continue to write more examples.
Hi Keith,
I’m a newbie to Cucumber and WAITR. I’m would like to install it onto my PC laptop. Have any suggestions where I can get a tutorial and some instructions on how to initialize? I’d also like to write a test case to it and try and run it. I’m so excited to try something new to me like this!!!
Cindy
Hi Keith,
Great post.
One thought though, is it correct to use ‘@browser.text.should include’ to assert that search results have a reference for the asked keyword? Since we have entered it in the search box, ‘@browser.text’ will always have the keyword, hence the test would always pass, irrespective of whether results contain the term or not.
Might be worth adding a more specific assert, only on the relevant search results section.