On 8 Apr 2009, at 10:31, Williams, Wesley wrote:
All,
I know this is an older post but I have a similar but different set
of scenarios I need to handle. I have a set of flight related
scheduling features, such as delay, reschedule, and cancel, each
with multiple scenarios that have an effect on later flights in the
schedule (there are a lot of scenarios actually). What (I think J)
I need is a set of flights that I can reuse, in a Background: given
section, by all of these features and scenarios, that is defined in
a way that is reusable and visible in each of the feature definitions.
Is this possible? Is there a better way to do this?
Example:
Feature: Delay flights with down line adjustments
As a flight scheduler
I want to delay a flight and have the down line flights adjusted
for different periods
So I can more quickly update a schedule when events happen
Background:
Given I have the following flights scheduled:
|aircraft | flight number | dept date | dept time |
| XX1 | XX0001 | 03Mar2009 | 1000 |
| XX1 | XX0002 | 03Mar2009 | 1400 |
| XX1 | XX0003 | 03Mar2009 | 2100 |
| XX1 | XX0004 | 04Mar2009 | 1000 |
Scenario: delay flights with down line adjustments for same dept
date as delayed flight
When I delay flight XX001 by 5 mins
Then XX001 departs at 1005
Then XX002 departs at 1405
Then XX003 departs at 2105
Then XX004 departs at 1000
OR
Scenario: delay flights with down line adjustments for same dept
date as delayed flight
When I delay flight XX001 by 5 mins
Then the scheduled flight should be
|aircraft | flight number | dept date | dept time |
| XX1 | XX0001 | 03Mar2009 | 1005 |
| XX1 | XX0002 | 03Mar2009 | 1405 |
| XX1 | XX0003 | 03Mar2009 | 2105 |
| XX1 | XX0004 | 04Mar2009 | 1000 |
There are many more scenarios.
Is there a nice way to removed the duplication that is here,
especially since I will need a similar set of flights for other
scheduling change scenarios? Does anyone see a nice way to simplify
the scenarios?
Great tool by the way.
Thanks,
Wes
Have you seen this?
http://www.benmabey.com/2008/05/19/imperative-vs-declarative-scenarios-in-user-stories/
Another way to remove duplication (and noise) from Cucumber steps is
the hide the details in the Ruby code that implements the step, and
write a much more general step in the feature file like this:
Given there are 3 flights departing on the same day
And the flights all leave at different times
And there is another flight leaving on the following day
When the earliest flight is delayed by 5 mins
Then the flights on the first day should all be delayed by 5 minutes
And the flight on the second day should be unaffected
These kind of steps can be clearer to read, but the trade-off is that
your underlying step code gets more complex as you start writing logic
to deliver these specific scenarios. Still, if you're clever about it,
these 'declarative' steps can still be pretty re-usable.
HTH,
Matt
Subject: [rspec-users] Reuse of Cucumber Features
+lots :)
Generally when we have problems with features its because we are
trying to
do to much at once. So in your case date entry is being complicated by
different contexts, birth and incident. One of the tennents of BDD
is to
write the simplest thing you can to make you feature pass. I think
another
one should be "first of all write the simplest scenarios". So taking
one of
your examples
Scenario: Enter Valid Incident
When I fill incident correctly
I should recieve a confirmation
Then your incident step can be something like
When /^I fill incident correctly$/ do
fill_in("incident[name]", :with => ...
...
end
If you wanted to specify validation in features you could do a step
like
When /^I fill incident correctly except$/ do |field|
When "I fill in incident correctly"
fill_in("incident[#{field}]", :with => ''
end
now you can create new features like
Scenario: Enter Valid Incident with no date
When I fill incident correctly except date
I should recieve an error
With a bit more trickery you could have
When I fill incident correctly except date which is xxx
Taking this approach you can build incrementally quite complex
validation
features whilst stll keeping each scenario simple and focused on one
thing.
Whether you should do this with features or put this detail
somewhere else
is another question entirely.
On another point with dates have you considered international
issues. All
the dates you've given in your example are valid (technically) there
just
not in the format you prefer. Also consider that the invalidity of
dates
might be context dependant e.g. an incident date in the future, an
appointment in the past.
HTH
Andrew
2008/12/14 Pat Maddox <pergesu at gmail.com>
> Hi Steve,
>
> I likely would only write two scenarios, one for a valid date and
one
> for an invalid one. Then I would write object-level specs to
determine
> what a valid date is. Extract this to a validator that you can
reuse
> throughout your model.
>
> If it's important that you write features for each potential invalid
> date format (because you want to communicate them with the customer)
> then I would write a feature file similar to what you show...but it
> would be focused only on the date, I wouldn't mention patients or
> incidents at all. Date entry seems to be an important concept in
your
> application, so I would write one feature that specifies how I
expect
> date entry to work, and then I can just write valid/invalid dates
for
> patient and incident features. Same idea as the first paragraph,
but
> using features instead of specs.
>
> Pat
>
>
> "Steve Molitor" <stevemolitor at gmail.com> writes:
>
> > Thanks -- that gets me closer. Here's an example. Let's say I
have two
> features, 'Create new patient' and 'Create new incident'. To
> > create a new patient you have to enter a valid birth date. To
create a
> new patient you must enter a valid birth date. To create a new
> > incident you must enter a valid incident date. The rules for
date entry
> are the same:
> >
> > Feature: Date entry
> >
> > Scenario: Invalid month
> > When I fill in the date value with "13/01/2000"
> > I should see "Invalid date..."
> >
> > Scenario: Invalid year (not 4 digits)
> > When I fill in the date value with "13/01/00"
> > I should see "Invalid date..."
> >
> > Scenario: Separate with slashes (ok)
> > When I fill in the date value with "01/13/2000"
> > I should see "valid date..."
> >
> > Scenario: Separate with dashes (ok)
> > When I fill in the date value with "01-13-2000"
> > I should see "valid date..."
> >
> > .... etc....
> >
> > Given the above, how should I write the 'create new patient' and
'create
> new incident' features? I don't want to copy and paste all the
> > date related scenarios, but I do want to specify (and test) that
the
> patient birth date and incident date fields conform to the general
date
> > rules. Here's how the 'create new patient' and 'create new
incident'
> features would look with some copy and pasting:
> >
> > Feature: Create new Patient
> >
> > Scenario: Enter invalid birth date
> > Given I fill in "birth date" with "13/01/2000"
> > And I fill in "patient name" with "Sam Smith"
> > When I press "Save"
> > I should see "Invalid birth date '13/01/2000'"
> >
> > Scenario: Enter valid birth date, valid name
> > Given I fill in "birth date" with "01/13/2000"
> > And I fill in "patient name" with "Sam Smith"
> > When I press "Save"
> > I should see "Patient Created Successfully"
> >
> > Scenario: Enter valid birth date with dashses.....
> > -------
> >
> > Feature: Create new Incident
> >
> > Scenario: Enter invalid incident date
> > Given I fill in "incident" with "13/01/2000"
> > And I fill in "supervisor" with "Sam Smith"
> > When I press "Save"
> > I should see "Invalid incident date '13/01/2000'"
> >
> > Scenario: Enter valid incident date, valid supervisor
> > Given I fill in "incident date" with "01/13/2000"
> > And I fill in "supervisor" with "Sam Smith"
> > When I press "Save"
> > I should see "Incident Created Successfully"
> >
> > Scenario: Enter valid incident date with dashes....
> > -----
> >
> > Am I making sense? I want to specify the date in the features,
as there
> may be extra requirements like birth dates can not be in the future
> > in addition to the generic date requirements. And I want to
validate
> that the form checks for valid dates, displays the appropriate error
> > message when invalid, and uses the common rules for parsing.
But I don't
> want to copy and paste those scenarios in every feature. I think
> > reusing steps as you mention is probably the solution but I'm
stuck on
> how to word it and put it together in my case.
> >
> > Steve
> >
> > On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 8:41 AM, Matt Wynne <matt at
mattwynne.net> wrote:
> >
> > On 13 Dec 2008, at 20:58, Steve Molitor wrote:
> >
> > What's the best way to handle a requirement that shows
up as a
> sub-requirement requirement in other features? For example let's
say
> > users can enter dates in various forms throughout my
application.
> There is one set of global rules specifying the formats in which
> > dates may be entered, and how they are interpreted. I
put that
> in one feature. In various other features, like 'Create new
> > patient', one can enter dates, like the patient's birth
date. I
> want to do something like 'and the date entry shall follow the
> > normal rules' but I'm not sure how to do that in an
example
> driven way, without copying and pasting from other features.
> >
> > Does my question make sense? Any suggestions?
> >
> > Do you know that you can call steps within steps?
> > http://blog.mattwynne.net/2008/11/14/dry-up-your-cucumber-steps/
> >
> > Is that what you're looking for?
> >
> > Matt Wynne
> > http://blog.mattwynne.net
> > http://www.songkick.com
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > rspec-users mailing list
> > rspec-users at rubyforge.org
> > http://rubyforge.org/mailman/listinfo/rspec-users
> >
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> > rspec-users at rubyforge.org
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Matt Wynne
http://blog.mattwynne.net
http://www.songkick.com
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