Capybara with Given\/When\/Then steps in acceptance testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many of us use cucumber<\/a> to write acceptance tests. It’s very readable. But cucumber has one big downside:<\/p>\n\n\n\n All steps are global and a instance variable from one step is accessible in another step. Previously we also use cucumber as tool for user stories. As you probably know, cucumber use internally Capybara<\/a> for steps implementation. And there is even more – latest version of Capybara comes with a built in DSL for creating descriptive acceptance tests!<\/p>\n\n\n\n So we decided to switch to pure rspec+capybara testing. Thus approach has one big benefit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You don’t need anymore to jump between feature and step files to guess where is implementation for a step. First downsides is that RSpec documentation output will be too poor and it’s not enough informative:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second downside is that scenario does not have anymore exact boundary blocks or steps. Real user story often has big scenarios and we realized that cucumber steps were cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were two ways:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Railswarians<\/a> never go back :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you decided to switch from Cucumber to Capybara acceptance testing try rspec-example steps<\/a> gem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With this gem you may use Given\/When\/Then<\/em> steps into rspec example!<\/p>\n\n\n\n And documentation output will be:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now it’s much better. Isn’t it? :)<\/p>\n\n\n\n See README<\/a> for more details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Just add to spec\/spec_helper.rb<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And enjoy Given\/When\/Then step usage!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Capybara with Given\/When\/Then steps in acceptance testing. Many of us use cucumber to write acceptance tests.We must to say it’s very nice tool that allows you to write features in English plain text.The main goal is provide interface that should be clear for Customer(non-programmer) and Developer. Cucumber example: Feature: User signup As a user I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":9498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":["Andriy Yanko"],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"categories_data":[{"name":"Engineering","link":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog?category=development"}],"post_thumbnails":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-content\/themes\/railsware\/vendors\/images\/article-thumbnail-default.jpg","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13970,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions\/13970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsware.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
We must to say it’s very nice tool that allows you to write features in English plain text.
The main goal is provide interface that should be clear for Customer(non-programmer) and Developer.<\/p>\n\n\n\nCucumber example:<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Feature: User signup\n As a user\n I want to sign in\n So I can use service features\n\n Background:\n Given user with \"jack@daniles.com\" email and \"qwerty\" password\n\n Scenario: Signing in with correct credentials\n When I go to sign in page\n And I fill in \"email\" with \"jack@daniles.com\"\n And I fill in \"password\" with \"qwerty\"\n And I click \"Login\" button\n Then I should see \"Welcome, jack@daniles.com!\"\n\n Scenario: User tries to sign in with incorrect password\n When I go to sign in page\n And I fill in \"email\" with \"jack@daniles.com\"\n And I fill in \"password\" with \"bla\"\n And I click \"Login\" button\n Then I should see \"Invalid credentials\"<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Steps maintenance<\/pre>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
In big project it can easy lead to mess.
Also you can read some rants about cucumber:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lately we found that our customers NEVER<\/strong> read cucumber features.
So do we need it anymore? Let’s check alternatives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We moved our features to spec\/acceptance<\/em> directory.
Let’s look at rspec+capybara example.<\/p>\n\n\n\nRSpec+Capybara example<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
$ cat spec\/acceptance\/signup_feature_spec.rb<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
feature \"User signup\" do\n background do\n @user = Factory(:user, :email => 'jack@daniles.com', :password => 'qwerty')\n end\n\n scenario \"Signing in with correct credentials\" do\n page.visit \"\/sessions\/new\"\n page.fill_in \"email\", :with => \"jack@daniles.com\"\n page.fill_in \"password\", :with => \"qwerty\"\n page.click_button \"Login\"\n page.should have_content(\"Welcome, jack@daniles.com!\")\n end\n\n scenario \"User tries to sign in with incorrect password\" do\n page.visit \"\/sessions\/new\"\n page.fill_in \"email\", :with => \"jack@daniles.com\"\n page.fill_in \"password\", :with => \"bla\"\n page.click_button \"Login\"\n page.should have_content(\"Invalid credentials\")\n end\nend<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Feature description and feature implementation are located together.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
It’s nice but there are also two downsides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n$ rspec -fs -c spec\/acceptance\/signup_feature_spec.rb\n\nUser signup\n Signing in with correct credentials\n User tries to sign in with incorrect password\n\nFinished in 13.55 seconds\n2 examples, 0 failures<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
It makes harder to understand the scenario flow.<\/p>\n\n\n\nOur Solution<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
RSpec+Capybara+Steps example<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
feature \"User signup\" do\n background do\n @user = Factory(:user, :email => 'jack@daniles.com', :password => 'qwerty')\n end\n\n Steps \"Signing in with correct credentials\" do\n When \"I go to sign in page\" do\n page.visit \"\/sessions\/new\"\n end\n And \"I fill in right email\" do\n page.fill_in \"email\", :with => @user.email\n end\n And \"I fill in right password\" do\n page.fill_in \"password\", :with => \"qwerty\"\n end\n And \"I click login\" do\n page.click_button \"Login\"\n end\n Then \"I should see greeting\" do\n page.should have_content(\"Welcome, #{@user.email}!\")\n end\n end\n\n Steps \"User tries to sign in with incorrect password\" do\n When \"I go to sign in page\" do\n page.visit \"\/sessions\/new\"\n end\n And \"I fill in right email\" do\n page.fill_in \"email\", :with => @user.email\n end\n And \"I fill in wrong password\" do\n page.fill_in \"password\", :with => \"bla\"\n end\n And \"I click login\" do\n page.click_button \"Login\"\n end\n Then \"I should see error\" do\n page.should have_content(\"Invalid credentials\")\n end\n end\nend<\/pre>\n\n\n\n$ rspec -fs -c spec\/acceptance\/signup_feature_spec.rb<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
User signup\n Signing in with correct credentials\n When I go to sign in page\n And I fill in right email\n And I fill in right password\n And I click login\" do\n Then I should see greeting\n User tries to sign in with incorrect password\n When I go to sign in page\n And I fill in right email\n And I fill in wrong password\n And I click login\n Then I should see error\n\nFinished in 13.55 seconds\n2 examples, 0 failures<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
RSpec Example Steps features<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Installation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
$ gem install rspec-example_steps<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Usage<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
require 'rspec\/example_steps'<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
References<\/h3>\n\n\n\n