Cucumber (software)

Cucumber

Developer(s)	Aslak Hellesøy[2], Joseph Wilk[3], Matt Wynne[4], Gregory Hnatiuk[5], Mike Sassak[6]
Stable release	1.0.2
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	Behavior driven development framework / Test tool
License	MIT License
Website	cukes.info

Cucumber is a tool for running automated acceptance tests written in a behavior driven development (BDD) style. Cucumber is written in Ruby programming language.^[7][8] Cucumber allows the execution of feature documentation written in business-facing text.

Example

A feature definition, with a single scenario^[9]:

Feature: Division
  In order to avoid silly mistakes
  Cashiers must be able to calculate a fraction

  Scenario: Regular numbers
    * I have entered 3 into the calculator
    * I press divide
    * I have entered 2 into the calculator

  Result: Should be 1.5 on the screen

The execution of the test implicit in the feature definition above requires the definition, using the Ruby language, of a few "steps"^[10]:

# encoding: utf-8
begin require 'rspec/expectations'; rescue LoadError; require 'spec/expectations'; end 
require 'cucumber/formatter/unicode'
$:.unshift(File.dirname(__FILE__) + '/../../lib')
require 'calculator'
 
Before do
  @calc = Calculator.new
end
 
After do
end
 
Given /I have entered (\d+) into the calculator/ do |n|
  @calc.push n.to_i
end
 
When /I press (\w+)/ do |op|
  @result = @calc.send op
end
 
Then /the result should be (.*) on the screen/ do |result|
  @result.should == result.to_f
end

Popularity

Cucumber has been downloaded over 829,873 times^[11]. According to a Mashable survey^[12], it is the 5th most popular testing framework in use by startup companies.

References

1. ^ https://rubygems.org/gems/cucumber/versions/1.0.2
2. ^ http://aslakhellesoy.com/
3. ^ http://blog.josephwilk.net/
4. ^ http://blog.mattwynne.net/
5. ^ https://github.com/ghnatiuk
6. ^ https://github.com/msassak
7. ^ http://pragprog.com/book/hwcuc/the-cucumber-book
8. ^ http://pragprog.com/book/achbd/the-rspec-book
9. ^ https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber/blob/master/examples/i18n/en/features/division.feature
10. ^ https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber/blob/master/examples/i18n/en/features/step_definitons/calculator_steps.rb
11. ^ http://rubygems.org/gems/cucumber/stats
12. ^ http://mashable.com/2011/07/26/startup-tools/

External links

• Cucumber project
• Cucumber (GitHub profile)
• Cucumber (Ruby Gem)
• Cucumber generators and runtime for Rails (Ruby Gem)
• At the Forge - Cucumber, by Reuven M. Lerner in the Linux Journal
• Agile 2009 - Aslak Hellesoy - Cucumber test framework, podcast by Bob Payne with Aslak Hellesøy
• Cucumber: The Latest in Ruby Testing, by Mike Gunderloy
• The Secret Ninja Cucumber Scrolls, by Gojko Adzic and David de Florinier