Gherkin Keywords

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What Are Gherkin Keywords In Feature File ?

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In cucumber feature file,we notice some colored words.These words are Ghekin keywords and each keyword holds a meaning.Below is the list of Gherkin keywords :

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Primary Keywords -

• Feature

• Scenario/Example

• Given

• When

• Then

• Background

• And

• But

• Scenario Outlines/Scenario Template

• *

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Secondary Keywords - ​

• " " "

• |

• @

• #

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Feature

It is a starting point of a Gherkin file that defines the logical test functionality you will test in your feature file.This keyword provides description of a software feature.

e.g.

Feature : Find the odd one

The numbers are related to each other in some logic except the one number.

Find it and the task is over

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Here,the text comes after the keyword feature is considered as the feature description.

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Scenario

This keyword is used to define a particular test within feature.In feature each scenario defines different test and feature contains a number of scenarios.

e.g.

Feature : User account test

This will test the functionality of user acoount

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Scenario : Login to user account and validate their credentials

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Scenario : Search a product and add it to the bag

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Given,When,Then

Given defines precondition to the test that descibes the initial context of the test and When keyword describes an event or an action whereas Then describes the expected outcome.

e.g.

Feature : User account test

This will test the functionality of user acoount

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Scenario : Login and Logout to user account

Given User is on Home Page

When User is Logged In

Then User is Logged Out

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Background

If same steps are repeating in all the scenarios that means they are commom in all they Background keyword is used to define these steps.

e.g.

Feature : Add product to bag

This will test the functionality of adding products to the user wishlist.

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Background : 

Given User is on Home Page

When User is logged In

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Scenario : Add product in bag

GIven Search a product

When Select the third product in serach result

Then Add to the bag

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And,But

And and But are used to add conditions to the steps.The difference between these two is that 'And' adds positive conditions while 'But' adds negative conditions.

e.g.

Feature : User account credentials test

This will validate the user credentials

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Scenario :Validate user email address and password

Given User is on Home Page

When User navigate to login page

And User enters email address and password

But Password is wrong

Then Message displayed Enter valid details

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Scenario Outlines

This keyword is used to run the same scenario multiple times with different set of values.We can run a single scenario on different-different combinations of values by passing the values in parameter.

e.g.

Feature : Scenario outline example

Scenario Outline : Distance from school to library

Given The school is <final> km far away to library

When A student covers <covered>km distance

Then <left>km distance is left to be covered

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Examples :

| final | covered | left |

|      1 |          0.4 | 0.6 |

|    1.3|          1.1 | 0.2 |

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Here,we can see parameter can be declared within <> and their values are mentioned within Examples keyword.

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* : Keywords

* can be used at the place of any normal step keywords.The purpose of * is to express the list of steps effectively if the list has much steps.

e.g.

Feature : User account test

This will test the functionality of user acoount

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Scenario : Login and Logout to user account

* User is on Home Page

* User is Logged In

* User is Logged Out

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Refer next page Cucumber Tags

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