Feature-scoped step definitions with SpecFlow?

Question

I'm using SpecFlow to do some BDD-style testing. Some of my features are UI tests, so they use WatiN. Some aren't UI tests, so they don't.

At the moment, I have a single StepDefinitions.cs file, covering all of my features. I have a BeforeScenario step that initializes WatiN. This means that all of my tests start up Internet Explorer, whether they need it or not.

Is there any way in SpecFlow to have a particular feature file associated with a particular set of step definitions? Or am I approaching this from the wrong angle?

Answer 1

There is a simple solution to your problem if you use tags.

First tag you feature file to indicate that a particular feature needs WatiN like that:

Feature: Save Proportion Of Sample Pool Required
  As an <User> 
  I want to <Configure size of the Sample required> 
  so that <I can advise the deployment team of resourcing requirments>.

  @WatiN
  Scenario: Save valid sample size mid range
  Given the user enters 10 as sample size
  When the user selects save
  Then the value is stored

And then decorate the BeforeScenario binding with an attribute that indicates the tag:

[BeforeScenario("WatiN")]
public void BeforeScenario()
{
  ...
}

This BeforeScenario method will then only be called for the features that use WatiN.

Answer 2

Currently (in SpecFlow 1.3) step-definitions are global and cannot be scoped to particular features.

This is by design to have the same behavior as Cucumber.

I asked the same question on the cucumber group:

http://groups.google.com/group/cukes/browse_thread/thread/20cd7e1db0a4bdaf/fd668f7346984df9#fd668f7346984df9

The baseline is, that the language defined by all the feature files should also be global (one global behavior of the whole application). Therefore scoping definitions to features should be avoided. Personally I am not yet fully convinced about this ...

However your problem with starting WatiN only for scenarios that need UI-Integration can be solved in two different ways:

• Tags and tagged hooks: You can tag your scenarios (i.e with @web) and define ina BeforeScenario-Hook that only should run for scenarios with a certain tag (i.e. [BeforeScenario("web")]). See the Selenium integration in our BookShop example: http://github.com/techtalk/SpecFlow-Examples/blob/master/ASP.NET-MVC/BookShop/BookShop.AcceptanceTests.Selenium/Support/SeleniumSupport.cs

• We often completely separate scenarios that are bound to the UI and scenarios that are bound to a programmatic API (i.e controller, view-model ...) into different projects. We tried to illustrate this in our BookShop example: http://github.com/techtalk/SpecFlow-Examples/tree/master/ASP.NET-MVC/BookShop/ .

Answer 3

Check this out (new feature in SpecFlow 1.4): https://github.com/techtalk/SpecFlow/wiki/Scoped-Bindings