Cucumber Features and Step Definitions

Question

I am new to Cucumber testing.

I have created two features files:

events.feature
partner.feature

and have my step definitions in a step_definitions folder:

./step_definitions/
     events.rb
     partner.rb

It seems that Cucumber looks in all the .rb files for the step information.

Is there anyway of restricting the feature to look at a specific step definition file?

The reason as to why I want to do this, is because I am getting Ambiguous match errors, even when I use the --guess flag.

The reason as to why I want to do this is for the following reasons. I am testing a CMS, and want to test each of the different content types (events & partners) in separate features.

events.feature

Feature: Add partner
  As an administrator I can add a new partner

  Scenario: Create partner
    Given I am logged in
    When I create a partner
    Then I should see content

partner.feature

Feature: Add event
  As an administrator I can add a new event

  Scenario: Create event
    Given I am logged in
    When I create an event
    Then I should see content

Just focusing on the 'then I should see content' which is in both scenarios, the error occurs because in the .rb files I need to include:

partners.rb

Then /^I should see content$/ do
  BROWSER.html.should include('SOME PARTNER CONTENT')
end

events.rb

Then /^I should see content$/ do
  BROWSER.html.should include('SOME EVENT CONTENT')
end

which means there is an Ambiguous match of "I should see content".

I understand there are different ways of structuring this, i.e. I could create a content feature, and use scenario outlines:

Feature: Add content
  As an administrator I can add a new content

  Scenario Outline: Create content
    Given I am logged in
    When I create an <content type>
    Then I should see <example content>

    Examples: 
    |event   |March Event | 
    |partner |Joe Blogs   | 

But I don't want to do this because I want to encapsulate each content type in their own test feature.

So essentially I need to work out how to run specific step files according to the feature I am testing.

Answer 1

Cucumber always loads all files and I don't think that there is a way to override this behavior. Regarding your problem with ambiguous steps - the solution is easy - add parameters to your steps

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

And in scenarios just call it like this

Then I should see "PARTNER CONTENT"

• free bonus - your scenario is now much more readable