Introduction

Cucumber is an automation testing tool primarily used for behavior-driven development (BDD) and acceptance testing. It enables collaboration between non-technical and technical members of a team by providing a common language in which software features can be described and tested.

Imagine you're building a cool app. People in your team have different roles: some know how to code, others focus on what the app should do without knowing how to code. Cucumber helps these different people work together smoothly.

  • Building Software Together: Cucumber is like a special language everyone in the team understands. It helps describe what the software should do in a way that's easy for everyone to read and understand.
  • Plain Language for Describing Features: Instead of using complex code language, Cucumber uses simple text that anyone whether they code or not can write and understand. This text describes what the software should do in different situations.
  • Translating Words into Actions: When these descriptions are written (using words like "Given," "When," "Then," "And," or "But"), Cucumber matches them with actual code that makes the software work that way. So, when you say "When a user logs in," Cucumber knows which code to run.
  • Ensuring Everyone's on the Same Page: By doing this, Cucumber ensures that what everyone understands the software should do matches what the software actually does. It helps avoid misunderstandings between team members.
  • Making Sure the App Does What's Needed: Ultimately, Cucumber helps ensure that the app does what it's supposed to do based on what everyone agreed upon, making the whole process smoother and more efficient.

Cucumber works with various programming languages to create and run tests. The tests in Cucumber are written in a language called Gherkin, which is a plain-text language with a specific syntax designed for describing test scenarios.

To execute these tests written in Gherkin, you need to use step definitions, which are snippets of code written in a programming language. Cucumber supports multiple programming languages for writing these step definitions, including Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, and C#.