add support for optional steps in cucumber feature file

[aragavan]

I found that when a scenario fails, the execution stops at the step where it failed and rest of the steps are ignored.
For testing websites, not necessarily a previous step is a prerequisite for the next step.
for example, in http://www.bbc.co.uk/ I could have a feature where it checks for the existence of the "news", "sports", "weather" and "top stories" module in the home page

Scenario: As a user I should be able to see all the section in bbc home apge

Given the bbc site is up
When the user visits the bbc home page
Then he should see the sports section
And he should be able to see the weather section
And he should be able to see the sports section
And he should be able to see the top news section

if the sports section module is not there in the bbc home page, scenario will fail without executing the next line.
My feature request is, we should have some control to instruct cucumber to stop/continue when there is a failure because top news section does not depend on any of the previous features.

[mattwynne]

It's not necessary to change cucumber to give you what you need, you just need to use it differently.

If you want to do what you describe, I suggest you re-word your scenario as a scenario outline like this:

Scenario Outline: 
  Given the bbc site is up
  When the user visits the bbc home page
  Then he should see the <section> section

  Examples:
    | section  |
    | weather  |
    | sports   |
    | top news |

This will generate three separate scenarios and they can all pass / fail individually.

Alternatively, write your scenario like this:

Scenario: 
  Given the bbc site is up
  When the user visits the bbc home page
  Then he should see the following sections:
    | weather  |
    | sports   |
    | top news |

Now create a step definition for the last step which checks for the existence of each of the sections, and if any are missing, fails with a helpful message telling you which ones are present and which aren't.

[bboydsto]

Then what would the Steps look like? For example, for "top news" how would that look like? @then("^top news$")
public void top_news() { system.println("this is a step"); } -- would it look like this?

[mattwynne]

@bboydsto I have no idea what you're talking about 😄

Can you try asking your question with a little more context? Also, if you ask on the community forum (https://groups.google.com/group/cukes) you'll get more people helping to answer your question. This issue list is only for developers.

[lock]

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