rspec users - Jan 2009 - [Cucumber, Webrat] Unable to run 2 features in a row

Hi,

I have written 2 features that each have 1 scenario. When I execute each
feature separately with "rake features FEATURE=features/..." they each
pass, but when I do "rake features", the first feature passes, and the
second one fails.

In my Given steps, I populate the DB, and some Given steps are called by
both features. I can''t call Given in only one feature and not the
other,
because in such case, individually running each feature would fail. So I
have added a check, if the entry already exists, then I shall not create
a duplicate. But it still doesn''t work.

How to get around this headache? Anyone already bumped into that?
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Fernando Perez wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have written 2 features that each have 1 scenario. When I execute each
> feature separately with "rake features FEATURE=features/..." they
each
> pass, but when I do "rake features", the first feature passes,
and the
> second one fails.
> 
> In my Given steps, I populate the DB, and some Given steps are called by
> both features. I can''t call Given in only one feature and not the
other,
> because in such case, individually running each feature would fail. So I
> have added a check, if the entry already exists, then I shall not create
> a duplicate. But it still doesn''t work.
> 
> How to get around this headache? Anyone already bumped into that?
Okay I get it now. That was a nasty one:

Between each Scenario, the DB gets cleared, however when adding entries 
to the DB, the object''s id gets incremented (i.e: it won''t
reset to 1).
So you cannot do something like the following in your step files:
product.author_id = 1

The way to fix this problem is to instantiate the object as an instance 
var:
@author = Author.create!

And then in the step definition you get its id using:
product.author_id = @author.id


It took me a few hours to figure out, and a lot of trial and error.

As I don''t see any other way around, I guess it is a good idea to
update
the following documentation page accordingly to explain in which case an 
instance var is compulsory: 
http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber/step-organisation
-- 
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

On 18 Jan 2009, at 00:07, Fernando Perez wrote:
> Fernando Perez wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have written 2 features that each have 1 scenario. When I execute  
>> each
>> feature separately with "rake features FEATURE=features/..."
they
>> each
>> pass, but when I do "rake features", the first feature
passes, and
>> the
>> second one fails.
>>
>> In my Given steps, I populate the DB, and some Given steps are  
>> called by
>> both features. I can''t call Given in only one feature and not
the
>> other,
>> because in such case, individually running each feature would fail.  
>> So I
>> have added a check, if the entry already exists, then I shall not  
>> create
>> a duplicate. But it still doesn''t work.
>>
>> How to get around this headache? Anyone already bumped into that?
>
> Okay I get it now. That was a nasty one:
>
> Between each Scenario, the DB gets cleared, however when adding  
> entries
> to the DB, the object''s id gets incremented (i.e: it
won''t reset to
> 1).
> So you cannot do something like the following in your step files:
> product.author_id = 1
Yes, hard-coding database identifiers anywhere is going to bite you  
somewhere painful every single time.

> The way to fix this problem is to instantiate the object as an  
> instance
> var:
> @author = Author.create!
>
> And then in the step definition you get its id using:
> product.author_id = @author.id
>
>
> It took me a few hours to figure out, and a lot of trial and error.
>
> As I don''t see any other way around, I guess it is a good idea to
> update
> the following documentation page accordingly to explain in which  
> case an
> instance var is compulsory:
> http://wiki.github.com/aslakhellesoy/cucumber/step-organisation

Not necessarily compulsory. You can also do this:

Given "The Book was written by the Author" do
   Product.count.should == 1
   the_product = Product.first
   Author.count.should == 1
   the_author = Author.first
   product.author_id = author.id
end

We have a convention on my team that as long as your step refers to to  
*the* Widget, then
   * there should only be one Widget in the database at that moment
   * you can therefore assume that the feature is referring to that  
one and only Widget


Matt Wynne
http://blog.mattwynne.net
http://www.songkick.com