July 2009

July 9, 2009

6:00 - 7:30 PM

Speaker

David W. Body / Big Creek Software, LLC

Topic

Cucumber & Webrat

Cucumber is a tool that lets software developers write descriptions of how software should behave in plain English (or any other natural language). These plain text descriptions can be executed by Cucumber and can serve as automated acceptance tests for the software they describe.

Here is a simple example. Describe a HelloWorld class as follows:

  Scenario: HelloWorld says Hello
  Given An instance of HelloWorld
  When I send it the say_hello message
  Then it should say "Hello, Iowa Ruby Brigade!"

Implement the HelloWorld class:

class HelloWorld
  def say_hello
    "Hello, Iowa Ruby Brigade!"
  end
end

After some minor setup, execute the description with Cucumber and you get this output:

Scenario: HelloWorld says Hello
  Given An instance of HelloWorld
  When I send it the say_hello message
  Then it should say "Hello, Iowa Ruby Brigade!"

1 scenario (1 passed)
3 steps (3 passed)
0m0.001s

Although Cucumber is written in Ruby, Cucumber can be used to write descriptions (acceptance tests) for software written in Ruby, Java, or .NET.  What's more, Cucumber can be used to describe (test) web applications written in any language.

Topics that will be covered:

• Introduction to Cucumber
• Using Cucumber with RSpec
• Using Cucumber with Ruby on Rails
• Using Cucumber & Webrat with Java web applications