Cucumber: best way to generate test data? and store it for future use?

Question

I'm still pretty new to Cucumber automation testing and I haven't found anything about this in documentation, so I'm guessing either it's not possible or it's done in a very different way.

The thing is, in Robot automation framework I'm used to working with variables like this: ${userName} and once set these can be shared by different tests. Is that possible in cucumber?

The specific use case is: I'm using Java version of Cucumber, and I want to create a new user account that I'll use throughout all scenarios in the whole feature file:

Scenario: Create user account
    Given user navigates to the home page
    And user enters username and password  *(this is where I want to provide random data and have it stored for future use)*
    And user clicks on the register button
    Then user should see the default landing page

I can always create a random user name and password in my test implementation using java and store them in class-scoped variables for future use in all steps that require them. But I'm not sure this is a good practice. Is there a better way to do so?

Possible duplicate of: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/26422470/good-practice-to-pass-variables-between-cucumber-jvm-steps — Marit, Jan 11 '18 at 15:36

Marit · Answer 1 · 2018-01-11T16:01:32.700

To generate a user and password, you'll have to implement this yourself, as stated by @Eugene S.

To share variables between steps, it is best to use Dependency Injection. Cucumber-jvm supports multiple DI frameworks, as listed here: https://cucumber.io/docs/reference/java-di Unfortunately there isn't a lot of "official" (Cucumber) documentation on how to do this.

Thomas Sundberg has written several blog posts on how to share variables between steps using different DI frameworks, including:

I don't think the OP asked about sharing states but about sharing variables. — Eugene S, Jan 11 '18 at 15:31

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '18 at 16:51

Random user and password is not really necessary. Read please Equivalence Class Testing vs. Boundary Value Testing

You can create your wildcards for variables:

`And user enters username and password "VAR#:username" "VAR#:password"`

`@Given("^user enters username and password$")
public void getCredentials(String userName, String password) {
    userName = DataStore.getValue(userName);
    password = DataStore.getValue(password);
}`

Inside dataStore you can get values from property file or anything else.

property file can look like:

VAR#:username=Username VAR#:password=1234

Eugene S · Answer 3 · 2018-01-11T15:35:05.600

No, Cucumber does not allow anything like that. The only thing Cucumber does, is parse your steps and run the matching methods.

To achieve what you describe you can just create a method that will somehow encapsulate data and variable that you require. Then you can run this step in order to obtain it.

For example take the step that you described:

And user enters username and password

Then the method that will be executed will look something like:

@Given("^user enters username and password$")
public void getCredentials() {

    //for example
    userName = SomeStaticClaass.getUsername();
    password = SomeStaticClaass.getPassword();

}

Cucumber: best way to generate test data? and store it for future use?

3 Answers3