Development

Structure

The source code of SpecFlow is included in a single Visual Studio 2008 solution (TechTalk.SpecFlow.sln), located in the main folder.

Besides the source code, the SpecFlow reporsitory also contains a "Samples" folder where you can find code samples (might be included into the installer later).

The source code is divided into the following categories:

• Installer - All code related to the SpecFlow installer o Location: "Installer" folder o Projects: + SpecFlowSetup - the setup project + DevenvSetupCustomAction - a custom action to call "devenv /setup" during installation
• Generator (aka Parser) - All code related to generating unit test classes from feature files o Includes Gherkin parser o Does not have a static dependency on the "Runtime" components to allow side-by-side runtime versions o Location: "Parser" folder
• VsIntegration - All code related to Visual Studio 2008 integration o Includes SingleFileGenerator for the ".feature" files o Location: "VsIntegration" folder
• Runtime - All code related to the execution of the generated tests o Includes + the "TestRunner" class (entry point of the generated test methods) + the dynamic binding resolution and execution logic + the binding attributes + the FeatureContext/ScenarioContext classes + the tracing logic o Location: "Runtime" folder
• Tests - Unit tests for the generator and the runtime components o Location: Tests o Projects: + ParserTests - tests for the parser and the generator + RuntimeTests - test for the runtime component
• Reporting - All code related to SpecFlow reports o Includes + Step Definition Report - a report about usage and binding of scenario steps + NUnit Execution Report - a report that visualizes the nunit execution result in SpecFlow style o Does not have a static dependency on the "Runtime" components to allow side-by-side runtime versions o Location: "Reporitng" folder

Conventions

Here is a list of code structuring conventions that we follow:

• The projects are named, like the full namespace (e.g. TechTalk.SpecFlow.Parser), but located in a folder with the short name (e.g. Parser). This is useful to stay below the VS path length limit.
• All external dependency (like nunit.framework) is located in the "lib" folder.
• All project includes (as a link) the VersionInfo.cs file from the root folder (to make the version changes easier).
• If you have finished working on a branch (that has been pushed at least once), you should delete it after merging back. Here is a description how: Remove a remote branch