From the basic folder structure discussed in Automated Testing with Cucumber + Capybara post, add two more files:

support > custom_config.rb

where:

environments.yml – contains all the environment variables that you can use

google:
 app_host: http://www.google.com

bing:
 app_host: http://www.bing.com

custom_config.rb - ruby code where you configure your code to read from a specific file

require "erb"

module CustomConfig
 unless defined? @@env_config
 puts "loading environments.yml..."
 env = (ENV['ENVIRONMENT'] && ENV['ENVIRONMENT'].to_sym) || :google
 environments = YAML.load(ERB.new(File.read(File.expand_path('../../../config/environments.yml', __FILE__))).result)
 @@env_config = environments[env.to_s]
 raise "No config found for environment: #{env}" unless @@env_config
 end

def env_config
 @@env_config
 end

end

World(CustomConfig)

Your base folder should look like these by now:

Revised Base Folder

Then edit your env.rb by adding the following lines to your environment file.

require File.expand_path(‘../custom_config’, __FILE__)
include CustomConfig

Also update Capybara.app_host definition to look up to @@env_config. Your env.rb file should be edited to something like this:

env.rb

require 'capybara'
require 'capybara/cucumber'
require File.expand_path('../custom_config', __FILE__)
include CustomConfig

Capybara.default_driver = :selenium
Capybara.app_host = env_config['app_host']
Capybara.default_wait_time = 20

World(Capybara)

Notice in line #07 of your env.rb you are basically pointing app host to whatever environment you set in your custom_config.rb – env variable, (see line #06) for this example :google

From here on you should still be able to run your simple_search.feature file without error, the only difference is your code reads now from a specific file – environments.yml, through custom_config.rb.

Simple search scenario

Scenario: A simple google search scenario
Given I am on the main google search
When I fill in "q" with "Cucumber test"
And I click "gbqfb" button
And I click on the first result
Then I should see "Cucumber lets software development teams describe how software should behave in plain text."

We can improve this 5-liner scenario by creating new step definition that accepts variable and reusing the previous step definitions in the new step.

Better search scenario

Scenario: The better way to do google search
Given I am on the main google search
When I search for "Cucumber test"
Then I verify first search result have "Cucumber lets software development teams describe how software should behave in plain text."

In order to make this new scenario running, we need to define the new step definitions:

Given /^I search for "([^\"]*)"$/ do |query|
 step %{I fill in "q" with "#{query}"}
 step %{I click "gbqfb" button}
end

Then /^I verify first search result have "([^\"]*)"$/ do |text|
 step %{I click on the first result}
 step %{I should see "#{text}"}
end

But wait, there’s even a better approach to present this scenario where we will use one of the Gherkin keyword “Scenario Outline.” Outline allows us to parameterized our test data by passing it to Examples.

Best search scenario

Scenario Outline: The best way to do google search
 Given I am on the main google search
 When I search for "<String>"
 Then I verify first search result have "<Search criteria>"

Examples:
 | String         | Search criteria   |
 | Cucumber tests | Cucumber          |
 | Selenium       | What is Selenium? |

Hope you had a great time, just like me. Happy Cuking!

Capybara is an acceptance testing framework with a higher level API and support for multiple backends, supports Selenium and runs in different browsers.

Others may ask, “Why would I use capybara if selenium could also drive the browser the way I want it?”  Well, one advantage I appreciate is Capybara’s higher-level API compared to selenium.

Let’s take for example a simple scenario of typing strings to an input textbox:

Selenium-webdriver snippet

require 'selenium-webdriver'

element = driver.find_element :name => "q"
element.send_keys "Cucumber tests"

Capybara snippet

require 'capybara'

fill_in "q", "Cucumber tests"

You can obviously see from this example that Capybara enforces easier writing scripts ability. For a complete documentation on Capybara you can check this link from Github which I found very helpful.

After installation setup discussed in my previous post Introduction to Cucumber, you need to have the following folder structure and files:

I. Base Folder

Base Folder Structure

where:

features – folder to host all your feature files

step_definitions – folder to host all your step definition Ruby files

support – folder to host your configuration files (env.rb)

Gemfile – defines the top-level gems to be used in your project

II. Features

- describes the features that a user will be able to use in the program

Sample: simple_search.feature

Feature: As a user I should be able to perform simple google search

Scenario: A simple google search scenario
 Given I am on the main google search
 When I fill in "q" with "Cucumber test"
 And I click "gbqfb" button
 And I click on the first result
 Then I should see "Cucumber lets software development teams describe how software should behave in plain text."

III. Step Definition

- describes the actions that user will do for each step.

Sample: search_step.rb

Given /^I am on the main google search$/ do
 visit ('/')
end

When /^(?:|I )fill in "([^"]*)" with "([^"]*)"$/ do |field, value|
 fill_in(field, :with => value)
end

Then /^I click "([^"]*)" button$/ do |button|
 click_button(button)
end

Then /^I click on the first result$/ do
 find(:xpath, "//html/body/div[3]/div[2]/div/div[5]/div[2]/div[2]/div/div[2]/div/ol/li/div/h3/a").click
end

Then /^I should see "([^"]*)"$/ do |text|
 page.should have_content(text)
end

IV. Support

- hosts all configuration files

Sample: env.rb

require 'capybara'
require 'capybara/cucumber'

Capybara.default_driver = :selenium
Capybara.app_host = "http://www.google.com"
Capybara.default_wait_time = 20

World(Capybara)

V. Gemfile

- a format for describing gem dependencies required to execute Ruby codes

Sample: Gemfile

source "http://rubygems.org"

group(:test) do
 gem 'cucumber'
 gem 'capybara'
 gem 'rspec'
end

VI. Run

Using terminal go to your root project folder and type: cucumber or bundle exec cucumber

After the run, you should be able to see the results like this:

1 scenario (1 passed)
5 steps (5 passed)
0m9.461s

This example runs smoothly in Windows 7. Let me know if it works for you as well.

It is designed to accommodate both the technical(developers, automation testers) and non-technical(stakeholders, product owners) members of the software development team.

Cucumber supports behavior-driven development(BDD). In BDD, users(business analysts, product owners) first write scenarios or acceptance tests that describes the behavior of the system from the customer’s perspective, for review and sign-off by the product owners before developers write their codes.

When you run your test, Cucumber reads through user-readable files called features, parse it to scenarios which contains set of steps that are then matched to a step definitions of Ruby code using a regular expression.

Feature files could be deceiving. It may look simple and plain in the outside. But complex in the inside, within step definition or the ruby files which controls the flow of actions and where all the magic happens.

In order for Cucumber to understand the feature files, it uses a basic syntax called Gherkin. Gherkin makes use of the following keywords for documentation and readability – Feature, Background, Scenario, Given, When, Then, And, But, *, Scenario Outline and Examples.

To dive more information about Cucumber, I would recommend you read The Cucumber Book  which have valuable information you would need in learning this new technology.

In preparation to  your Cucumber testing experience, will be needing to setup the following in your local machine.

1. Java installation – JRE will do, mine is Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment 1.6

2. Ruby installation – visit their Downloads page. I have Jruby 1.6.7.2 installed in my box.

Don’t forget to define Java and Ruby Path in your system’s environment variables as well.

3. RubyGems installation – use “gem install <name of gem>” command. Here are some of the basic, helpful gems:

- Cucumber

- Capybara

- Rspec

If you’re all setup, feel free to jump to the next post – Automated Testing with Cucumber + Capybara

Reference: The Cucumber Book by Matt Wynne and Aslak Hellesoy

Here are some of the keyboard shortcuts I find to be friendly and useful:

sudo apt-get install libxslt-dev libxml2-dev
sudo gem install nokogiri

Running “sudo gem install nokogiri” displays the following error:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
 ERROR:  Error installing nokogiri:
 ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
/usr/bin/ruby1.8 extconf.rb
 extconf.rb:5:in `require': no such file to load -- mkmf (LoadError)
 from extconf.rb:5
Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/nokogiri-1.4.3.1 for inspection.
 Results logged to /var/lib/gems/1.8/gems/nokogiri-1.4.3.1/ext/nokogiri/gem_make.out

Was able to resolve the issue by installing ruby1.8-dev and reinstalling the nokogiri gem:

sudo apt-get install ruby1.8-dev 
sudo gem install nokogiri 

exist@exist:~$ sudo gem install nokogiri
 Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
 Successfully installed nokogiri-1.4.4
 1 gem installed
 Installing ri documentation for nokogiri-1.4.4...

master – machine where Selenium scripts, browser configurations are saved; one that will be sending requests to run the scripts

slave – machine where Selenium scripts will be run using a different platform (OS and browser); one that will accept the request to run the scripts

To do this, I configure the browser file from the master machine:

# for Internet Explorer
our $sel = Test::WWW::Selenium->new( host => "Windows Machine IP", port => 4445, browser => "*iexplore", browser_url => "application URL" );

From the slave machine, I needed to install the following:

- Java SE Runtime  Environment 1.7

- download latest Selenium Server from SeleniumHQ

To prepare the slave machine to accept the request, launch selenium server from the terminal using the same port set in the master machine:

java -jar selenium-server-standalone-2.23.1 -port 4445

To send request from the master machine, you may use “spec”, “rake” command depending on how you organized your test files. However after executing the command to run the scripts from the master machine, an error was encountered in the slave machine - “Couldn’t open app window; is the pop-up blocker enabled?”

IE 10 – Selenium error

# for Internet Explorer
our $sel = Test::WWW::Selenium->new( host => "Windows Machine IP", port => 4445, browser => "*iexploreproxy", browser_url => "application URL" );

Visitor: What are you guys doing?

Employee #1: Well, I’m executing these bunch of test scenarios repeatedly.

Image taken from http://www.zazzle.com

Employee #2: Well, I’m trying to earn a living.

New Peso Bills

Employee #3: Well, I make sure users will have a valuable experience with this cool stuff we are developing.

QA at work (Image taken by Ram Masinas)

Although the three employees are doing the same task, only one of them sees the bigger picture of their work and truly understands the value of their job. #Perspective

What drives you?

I’m consolidating great ideas I bump along the way that would somehow motivate us in our work place. I’ll be needing your help on this one, please feel free to add more on the list.

Inspired from Atlassian’s ”Fedex” Day. This is a time(24 hours) given to their developers to work on whatever they want as long as it is related to their products. This activity fosters creativity and fun.

2. Late Mo, Earning Ko

I heard this during one of my RX morning routines. This is company perks where employees tardiness deductions will be collected and distributed as reward to employees who have no tardiness. Cool huh!

OpenVPN can be used in two ways – Server and Client. OpenVPN server is the system that you wish to use as VPN end-point or the one you want to access. In my case what I needed to do is to install OpenVPN as client or the one making a service request.

1. Install OpenVPN using terminal:

sudo apt-get install openvpn

2. Create client configuration file in /etc/openvpn

sudo cp /usr/share/doc/openvpn/examples/sample-config-files/client.conf /etc/openvpn

3. Setup client config file, server keys and certificates in /etc/openvpn folder (in my case our client sent these files generated from the server)

/etc/openvpn/client.conf
/etc/openvpn/keys/ca.crt
/etc/openvpn/keys/hostname.crt
/etc/openvpn/keys/hostname.key
/etc/openvpn/keys/ta.key

4. Edit client configuration file (client.conf) based on above directory

# example client config file
client
remote [server] 1194
dev tun
proto udp

ca /etc/openvpn/keys/ca.crt
cert /etc/openvpn/keys/hostname.crt
key /etc/openvpn/keys/hostname.key
ns-cert-type server
tls-auth /etc/openvpn/keys/ta.key 1

comp-lzo
keepalive 10 60
ping-timer-rem
persist-key
persist-tun

verb 3

5. Go to /etc/openvpn folder and start the OpenVPN

exist@exist:/etc/openvpn$ sudo openvpn client.conf
Mon Apr 23 13:44:43 2012 OpenVPN 2.1.0 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu [SSL] [LZO2] [EPOLL] [PKCS11] [MH] [PF_INET6] [eurephia] built on Jul 12 2010
Mon Apr 23 13:44:43 2012 IMPORTANT: OpenVPN's default port number is now 1194, based on an official port number assignment by IANA. OpenVPN 2.0-beta16 and earlier used 5000 as the default port.
...
Mon Apr 23 13:44:50 2012 [server] Peer Connection Initiated with [AF_INET]xxx.xxx.xx.xxx:1194
Mon Apr 23 13:44:52 2012 SENT CONTROL [server]: 'PUSH_REQUEST' (status=1)
...
Mon Apr 23 13:44:53 2012 TUN/TAP TX queue length set to 100
Mon Apr 23 13:44:53 2012 /sbin/ifconfig tun0 10.8.1.190 pointopoint 10.8.1.189 mtu 1500
Mon Apr 23 13:44:53 2012 /sbin/route add -net 192.168.3.0 netmask 255.255.255.0 gw 10.8.1.189
Mon Apr 23 13:44:53 2012 /sbin/route add -net 10.3.0.0 netmask 255.255.0.0 gw 10.8.1.189
Mon Apr 23 13:44:53 2012 /sbin/route add -net 10.8.1.1 netmask 255.255.255.255 gw 10.8.1.189
Mon Apr 23 13:44:53 2012 Initialization Sequence Completed

There you go! By this time, you should be able to access the application you want to test However in our case we needed to setup the IP address of the server that we are trying to gain access in our hosts file. From the terminal, we type:

[user]@exist:~$ sudo su -
[sudo] password for [user]: [input password]
root@[user]:~# vi /etc/hosts


Then input the IP address and the corresponding name of the web server we are trying to access at the end of the line.