Reusing different backgrounds

[ghost]

I am currently learning cucumber and I was checking some examples here: https://github.com/webjam/webjam/tree/master/features

Most of the scenarios contains

Given I am not logged in

or

Given I am logged in

so this is a clearly reusable part of the features.

According to the documentation it should be moved to a Background e.g. by https://github.com/webjam/webjam/blob/master/features/home.feature

Feature: Viewing the home page

  In order to see all the cool stuff
  I should be able to visit the home page

  Background:
    Given I am not logged in

  Scenario: not logged in
    When I view the home page
    Then I see the page

  Scenario: viewing / on a mobile
    When I view the home page from an iphone
    Then I am redirected to the mobile page

  Scenario: viewing / on a mobile with redirect-to-mobile=no
    When I view the home page from an iphone specifying redirect-to-mobile=no
    Then I am not redirected to the mobile page
    And I see the page

  Scenario: viewing the mobile version with an upcoming event, a past event and a post
    Given there is an upcoming event
      And there is a past event
      And there is a post
    When I view the mobile version of the home page
    Then I see the page

  Scenario: viewing the mobile version without any events or posts
    When I view the mobile version of the home page
    Then I see the page

The problem that sometimes not every scenario have the same background in a feature. So some of them need a logged in state, while some of the need a not logged in state. Afaik. there is no support to reuse such code. Probably split into multiple features, but I thought it would be better to use groups:

Feature: Viewing post pages

  In order to absorb Lachlan's deep insights into man and machine
  I should be able to visit pages and pages and pages of blog posts

  Group:
    Background:
      Given I am logged in

    Scenario: viewing a post when logged in
      When I view the post page
      Then I see the page

    Scenario: viewing a mobile post when logged in
      When I view the mobile post page
      Then I see the page

    Scenario: viewing a mobile post when not logged in
      When I view the mobile post page
      Then I see the page


  Group:
    Background:
      Given I am not logged in

    Scenario: viewing a post when not logged in
      When I view the post page
      Then I see the page

By some of the cases this hierarchical grouping won't work, so this is not a perfect solution. Tagging would be perfect, but I am unsure whether I should use it in this cases. Any opinion?

Another possible solution to match the "when not logged in" part from the scenario text using a helper that adds the Given I am not logged in. So the code would be such simple:

Feature: Viewing post pages

  In order to absorb Lachlan's deep insights into man and machine
  I should be able to visit pages and pages and pages of blog posts

    Scenario: viewing a post when logged in
      When I view the post page
      Then I see the page

    Scenario: viewing a mobile post when logged in
      When I view the mobile post page
      Then I see the page

    Scenario: viewing a mobile post when not logged in
      When I view the mobile post page
      Then I see the page

    Scenario: viewing a post when not logged in
      When I view the post page
      Then I see the page

I am not sure whether this is possible by the current test runner.

[jbpros]

This should be discussed on cucumber/gherkin3 instead.

I haven't put much thought in it but the Group: keyword is interesting and deserves some thoughts. Matching the scenario name seem too error-prone to me (but you can achieve that in a before hook in your own suite).

@Inf3rno Can you reopen this on the gherkin3 repo please?

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