There are times when you find yourself repeating yourself when writing features
For example, I have a scenario in which I fill in a log in form, entering username, password and clicking the OK button
Scenario: I log in using the login form
Given I click the login button
And the login dialog is shown
When I type Nick into the field username
And I type mypassword into the field password
And I click the OK button
Then I am logged in as the user Nick
I’d like to reuse these steps from other scenarios
I could implement a step method for the whole login operation which combines the above steps, e.g.:
@Step("I log in as user (.*) with password (.*)")
public void logIn(String user, String password) {
clickTheLoginButton();
checkLoginDialogShown();
setUsername(user);
setPassword(password);
clickOK();
checkLoggedIn(user);
}
This would solve the problem, but I’ve had to duplicate the entire step sequence in Java code.
What I’d like is a way to reuse my login steps without repeating myself.
This is where step macros come in.
To express the same thing with a Step Macro I could define a step macro in my .feature file.
Then I can refer to the macro in a step from my main scenario:
Scenario: I log in using the login form
Given I log in as user Nick with password myPassword
Then I am logged in as the user Nick
Step-Macro: I log in as user <user> with password <password>
Given I click the login button
And the login dialog is shown
When I type <user> into the field username
And I type <password> into the field password
And I click the OK button
When the interpreter reads the feature, it first preparses any Step-Macro definitions.
Then, for each scenario step, it first tries to match the step text to any step macros which were defined.
If a matching macro is discovered then the step macro steps are inserted as child steps of the scenario step If any macro steps fail, then the scenario step is considered to have failed
If you want to use a step macro across multiple features, you can place it in a separate file with the extension .stepmacro:
#file: login.stepmacro
Step-Macro: I log in as user <user> with password <password>
Given I click the login button
And the login dialog is shown
When I type <user> into the field username
And I type <password> into the field password
And I click the OK button
#file: login.feature
Feature: Log In
Scenario: I can log in using the login form
Given I log in as user Nick with password myPassword
Then I am logged in as the user Nick
#file: accountSummary.feature
Feature: Account Summary
Scenario: Account summary link is shown when logged in
Given I log in as user Nick with password myPassword
Then the account summary link is visible on homepage
Q: Can I reference another step macro from within a step macro? A: Of course