Cucumber set up and sample test

Compared to the time I spent getting GEB up and running and getting tests working... Cucumber is so much easier.

Here's how I set up Cucumber
First, I edited the Gemfile for a project and added this group:

group :test, :development do
  gem 'cucumber-rails'
  gem 'database_cleaner'
  gem 'rspec'
  gem 'spork'
  gem 'watir-webdriver'
end

Once done, I run at the project root:

bundle install

It pulls down the gems needed - in this case, I'm mainly using cucumber-rails and watir-webdriver.

After the install, I run a rails generator call to set up cucumber from the project root:

rails generate cucumber:install

This will create a features folder... it's layout will be like this:

features

  |

  |--step_definitions

  |--support

At the root of the features folder, I put my BDD test.  This is where you define the goals... you can think of it as the high level "Given When Thens."  What's cool about Cucumber, is that the NO code goes in this file, it's simple.  In GEB, or groovy frameworks, simple code goes in the BDD tests.  But in Cucumber, NOTHING but the BDD goes there. 

The BDD Test

In my test, I wrote the following in a ruby file at the root here:

Feature: User searches for book on Amazon.com
  Scenario: User searches for the book Cucumber
    Given a user goes to Amazon.com
    When they input the title Cucumber in the Amazon search field
    And they click submit
    Then  they should see a resuls list with Cucumber in the title

So the directory looks like:

features

  |

  |--step_definitions

  |--support

  amazon_test.rb

If you were to run the command "cucumber" now, it would return back a statement that there are no step definitions.  Which is true, there aren't.  The step definitions is the code that makes this test work.  Right now, it just has the BDD language, but no code.

The Step Definitions
So lets create the amazon_test.rb ruby file... in there I use Watir-webdriver to power the browser... and I use Cucumber to write the Given When Thens'.  Here's my file's contents:
Given /^a user goes to Amazon.com$/ do
  @browser = Watir::Browser.new(:ff)
  @browser.goto "http://www.amazon.com"
  @browser.title
end

When /^they input the title Cucumber in the Amazon search field$/ do
  @browser.text_field(:name => "field-keywords").set "Cucumber"
end

And /^they click submit$/ do
  @browser.button(:class => "nav-submit-input").click
end

Then /^they should see a resuls list with Cucumber in the title$/ do
  @browser.h1(:id => "breadCrumb") == "Cucumber"
  @browser.close
end

Now if we run "cucumber" - it will execute each scenario in the test and each part of the test.  If it fails to get a value for any of the steps, it will return the error in the console.  If you have a ANSI color coded terminal you'll get results in a nice color coding.

Breaking the Code Down
First line defines the browser I'm using. In this case it's Firefox.

After that I tell it where to go, in this case www.amazon.com

Next I'm finding the main search field on Amazon ("field-keywords") - I'm searching for the name on the field.  It would be better to search by ID, but I'm going for a field name search.  In the same line, I'm passing the value of "cucumber" into the field.

Next I find the submit button and click it.

Then I find the breadcrumb on the page, and verify the value is "Cucumber"

Finally I close the browser to end the test.