Testing Area/Behat Testing/Basics

How to write a Behat test - Overview/Summary

Behat tests are written in Gerkin language, which is English readable. You write the test in a text editor like Vim, Gedit or Eclipse. For beginners, Gedit is recommended. To write the test start with the feature. The purpose of the Feature is to say what you are testing and what you gain from testing that feature.

 <@javascript @core @core_portfolio_page>         # Tag the tests appropriately to allow them to be run selectively.
 Feature: <Portfolio page creation>               # Identify the area under test.
 As a <logged in account type>                    # Identify who 'you' are 
                                                         (e.g. site admin, institution admin, tutor, student).
 I want to <save a portfolio page in Mahara>      # Identify what 'you' want to do.                                  
 So that <there is a record of my work>  # Identify why 'you' want to do it (i.e. benefit from it).

Then follows the scenario/s, there can be many of these, each addressing different preconditions. Their names should identify what aspect of the feature is being tested. If you are testing a specific bug add the bug number here from Launchpad.

 Scenario: <Create basic page (Bug 761234)>       # Identify what aspect/s of the feature that is being testing.
 # <Comment/s>                                         # Comments may be used to clarify terminology e.g. what is 'basic'.
 Given <Set the scene with a condition...>        # Identify the preconditions that need to be met.
 And  <Add further condition/s>                        # Use as many 'And's as you need to set the required preconditions.
 #    <Comment/s>                                      # Comments may be milestone markers to improve human readability.
 When  <Provable action occurs...>                # Identify something that happens like clicking or pressing a button.
 And  <Add further action/s to occur>                  # Use as many 'And's as you need to describe the action/s
                                                                 (eg like pushing 10 buttons to get to the place you want).
 #    <Comment/s>                                      # Comments may be used to describing why something has to happen.  
 Then  <Add the desired outcome...>               # Identify the achievable outcome e.g. what you see when you click.
 And  <Add further desire outcome/s<                   # Use as many 'And's as you need to definite success. 
 #    <Comment/s>                                      # Comments may be used to further explain outcome/s & implications.
 

Write down every link you click and every button you pushed to create the page using the specific Behat syntax from this page [1]. These are your Given, And, When and Then steps.

Behat test example:

  Feature: Portfolio page creation
  As a student
  I want to save a portfolio page in Mahara
  So that there is a record of my work to share.

 Scenario: Create basic page (Bug 761234)
  Given I am logged in as the user "Student1" with password "Password-123"
  And I follow "Portfolio"
  # Create a page 
  And I follow "Pages"
  When I press "Create page"
  # Filling in the information on the page
  And I fill in the following:
  | Page title | This is where you put the page title |
  | Page description | This is where you type the description of the page |
  # Saving the page
  And I press "Save"
  And I press "Done"
  # Verifying that the page saved  
  Then I should see "This is where you put the page title"

Save the test as a .feature file in the appropriate directory. For example, portfolio_page_creation.feature

The fastest way to write a test is using parts from previous tests. In the terminal use this command to search for the specific steps that you need:

 grep --color=auto -RniP -C 3 --include *.feature '(given|when|then|and).*delete.*activity' *

Replace delete and activity with the specific things that you need to search for

For further information on Behat, Gherkin etc. please see here (the base web site for Behat testing). Also, see here for more information on Gherkin and Cucumber.