Getting Started with Cucumber on Ubuntu

I finally found some time to mess with cucumber, its pretty nice but has some edges and quircks… but for now i like it 🙂

Install
This was rather hard… (these libraries and frex should not be necessary for mac)

sudo apt-get install libxslt1-dev libxml2-dev racc
sudo gem install aaronp-frex brynary-webrat
sudo gem install cucumber
./script/generate cucumber
rake features

First story

#features/signup.feature
Feature: Signup
  Scenario: A new user comes to the page and wants to register.
    Given I am on "/"
    When I click "register"
    And I fill in "user[name]" with "Michael G"
    And I fill in "Email" with "test@test.de"
    And I fill in "Password" with "test"
    And I fill in "Password confirmation" with "test"
    And I press "Register for the free basic account"
    Then I should be on "/"
    And I should be logged in
    And I should see a flash about "activation"

Environment setup

#append to features/support/env.rb
#load all fixtures -- https://pragmatig.wordpress.com/2008/12/25/load-all-fixtures-when-not-in-test/
include AuthenticatedTestHelper # restful authentification
include RspecResponseEnhancer # https://pragmatig.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/rspec-responseshould-information-enhancers/

Common steps
There is a nice collection of steps already available in steps/webrat_steps, but some basics where missing….

#features/step_definitions/common_steps.rb
When /^I click "(.*)"$/ do |link|
  click_link(link)
end

When /^I am on "(.*)"$/ do |path|
  header('Accept-Language','EN-en')
  visit path
end

Then /^I should be on "(.*)"$/ do |path|
  response.request.request_uri.should == path
end

Then /^I should see a flash about "(.*)"/ do |message|
  doc.search('div.flash_notice').inner_html.include?(message).should be_true
end

Then /^I should be logged in$/ do
  should be_logged_in
end

def doc
  Hpricot(response.body)
end

Output

 rake features
Feature: Signup  # features/signup.feature
  Scenario: A new user comes to the page and wants to register.  # features/signup.feature:2
    Given I am on "/"                                            # features/step_definitions/common_steps.rb:6
    When I click register                                        # features/step_definitions/common_steps.rb:1
    And I fill in "user[name]" with "Michael G"            # features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb:12
    And I fill in "Email" with "test@test.de"                    # features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb:12
    And I fill in "Password" with "test"                         # features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb:12
    And I fill in "Password confirmation" with "test"            # features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb:12
    And I press "Register for the free basic account"            # features/step_definitions/webrat_steps.rb:4
    Then I should be on "/"                                      # features/step_definitions/common_steps.rb:11
    And I should be logged in                                    # features/step_definitions/common_steps.rb:19
    And I should see a flash about "activation"                  # features/step_definitions/common_steps.rb:15

10 steps passed

Feels great to write stories again, sadly takes more time then unit tests, but the readability is superb! IMO a very nice way of doing integration tests…

4 thoughts on “Getting Started with Cucumber on Ubuntu

  1. Thanks for the tip, when i looked yesterday i got a 404 from github so i went for the next best think on google 🙂

    BTW: thanks for this great tool 😉

  2. Why are you including racc and aaronp-frex? Is it anything to do with RspecResponseEnhancer.

    What do these things do? I’ve not seen them in other Cucumber tutorials.

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