Working with Cucumber | Cucumber Testing Essentials

Course Objectives

This “skills-centric” course is about 50% hands-on lab and 50% lecture, designed to train attendees in core Cucumber and web testing skills, coupling the most current, effective techniques with the soundest industry practices. Throughout the course students will be led through a series of progressively advanced topics, where each topic consists of lecture, group discussion, comprehensive hands-on lab exercises and review.

This course provides indoctrination in the practical use of the umbrella of technologies that are on the leading edge of test engineering.  Working in a hands-on learning environment, led by our expert practitioner, students will learn:

• Test-Driven and Behavior-Driven Testing concepts
• The concept of refining requirements into executable specifications
• How BDD, Cucumber, and Gherkin work together
• Transform requirements into features and feature files
• Creating step definitions
• Using Cucumber and Gherkin to test services
• How to manage Cucumber and improve the organization of scenarios
• Testing the controller and service layers of an application
• How to use Selenium to test web applications
• Using BDD, Cucumber, and Selenium to test web interfaces

Need different skills or topics?  If your team requires different topics or tools, additional skills or custom approach, this course may be further adjusted to accommodate.  We offer additional testing, Selenium, Cucumber, Gherkin, Python, TDD, BDD, programming, testing tools, test automation, QA, services, security and other related topics that may be blended with this course for a track that best suits your needs. Our team will collaborate with you to understand your needs and will target the course to focus on your specific learning objectives and goals.

Course Prerequisites

This is an introductory-level course is geared for experienced Test Engineers, Quality Assurance Engineers or others needing to learn Cucumber. Prior experience with basic Java syntax (to work with Cucumber) would be helpful. Participants without a coding background are welcome to follow along in the labs, copying lab solutions as needed.

Please see the Related Courses tab for specific Pre-Requisite courses, Related Courses that offer similar skills or topics, and Learning Path recommendations.

Course Agenda

Session: BDD and Cucumber Fundamentals

Lesson: BDD and Testing

• Understanding BDD
• Requirements and BDD
• Requirements to Features
• Features to Stories
• Lab: Acceptance Criteria

Lesson: Cucumber Overview

• Feature Files
• Step Definitions
• Cucumber and JUnit
• Implementing and Testing Features
• Lab: Creating and Using a Features File

Lesson: Executable Specifications

• Gherkin Keywords
• Feature, Background, Scenario
• Given, When, and other Gherkin concepts
• A detailed look at Step Definition
• The use of Step Definition Files
• Lab: Cucumber Step Definition
• Lab: BDD for Echo Messaging Service

Session: Gherkin and Cucumber

Lesson: Step Definitions

• Steps and Step Definitions
• Capturing Groups and Arguments
• Returned Results: Success to Ambiguous
• Resolving Collisions
• Organizational Techniques
• Lab: BDD for Calculator Service

Lesson: Managing Cucumber

• Cucumber Runtime Options
• Working with Plugins
• Filtering Scenarios
• Cucumber Profiles
• Automating Cucumber

Lesson: Working with Non-UI Applications

• Challenges Testing the UI
• Testing at Controller and Service Layers
• Testing Business Logic
• Working with Legacy Applications
• Testing Non-Functional Requirements
• Lab: BDD for a Movie Service
• Lab: BDD for a Grocery Service

Lesson: Working with the Web: Selenium

• Selenium Overview
• Java, JUnit, and Selenium
• Handling Exceptions
• Web Page Locators
• Working with Forms

Optional: Extra Cucumber Labs

Students will also develop and run tests against several active web pages:

• Search for flights on Southwest
• Search for flights on Hotwire
• Search for home lending options on Chase
• Shop at Walmart
• Login to Facebook

Course Materials

Course Materials: Each student will receive a Student Guide with course notes, code samples, software tutorials, step-by-step written lab instructions, diagrams and related reference materials and links (as applicable). Students will also receive the project files (or code, if applicable) and solutions required for the hands-on work.

Setup Made Simple! Our dedicated tech team will work with you to ensure your student machines and learning environment is setup, tested and ready to go well in advance of the course delivery date, ensuring a smooth start to class and seamless hands-on experience for your students. We offer several flexible student machine setup options including guided manual set up for simple installation directly on student machines, or cloud based / remote hosted lab solutions where students can log in to a complete separate lab environment minus any installations, or we can supply complete turn-key, pre-loaded equipment to bring ready-to-go student machines to your students or in-person facility.  Please inquire for details.