Config to implement BDD using JBehave and Selenium

This post describes the steps to configure the complete environment and tools to be used to automate BDD tests using JBehave and Selenium
[This is a consolidated version of some earlier posts that deal with some of the topics here; refer other posts from this blog for more details]


OS / Software / Libraries / Version -
1. OS name: "windows 7", version: "6.1", arch: "x86", family: "windows"
i. Even though am having 64bit machine, all the software being used is 32-bit
2. Apache Maven 3.3.9
i. Maven home: C:\Program Files [x86]\Apache\Maven\apache-maven-3.3.9
3. Java 8 (32 bit) - 1.8.0_112
i. Java home: C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jdk1.8.0_112
4. Selenium 3.3.1
5. Eclipse Java EE IDE Version: Neon
6. M2E Plugin [always update to latest version]
7. Log4J 1.2.17
8. Apache POI 3.15
9. OpenCSV 3.9
10. IE 11 - 32 Bit
     i. Though the parent IE process is 64 bit, but the actual instance is of 32 bit, hence, we need to run with the 32 bit driver for selenium
11. Firefox
12. Chrome

Steps -

1. Install the JDK, set the Environment variables
2. Install Maven
3. Download IDE - Eclipse
4. Download JBehave plugin

Installation and Update via the Eclipse Installer:

Help > Install New Software...

Add the new site location http://jbehave.org/reference/eclipse/updates/

Select JBehave Eclipse feature and follow standard Eclipse installation procedure

How to verify:

Go to file > new > other, and then select JBehave > New Story

If you can see the JBehave or 'New Story' then installation was succesfull.

5. Create your JBehave project -

Refer this link for more details - Create a Maven project for JBehave

1. Create a folder - C:\Automation\BDD\
2. Navigate to this folder via maven
3. Run command - Use the latest version of JBehave. Update the value of this parameter -DarchetypeVersion=<latest ver>. This can be checked from Maven Central

mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.jbehave -DarchetypeArtifactId=jbehave-simple-archetype -DarchetypeVersion=4.6.3 -DarchetypeRepository=https://nexus.codehaus.org/content/repositories/releases/org/jbehave/jbehave-simple-archetype/

• groupID: com.automation
• artifactID:bdd
• others as default

This would download an empty project based on jbehave-simple-archetype

  4. Go to the pom dir, then run this

mvn dependency:resolve

This could download a bunch of stuff in your local .m2 dir

  5. Go to the pom dir, and then run the command

mvn eclipse:eclipse

This could download a bunch of stuff too.

6. Import this project in eclipse -

 - Go to File > Import > Maven project

You may get a few errors when you first load the project. Try the below things to resolve.

- Go to Project > Clean

This will rebuild the project

- Use Alt+F5 with 'Force update of Snapshots/Releases' checked

This could resolve most of the errors.

Sometimes we get the following error after importing the default jbehave project in eclipse

• ERROR Description - Plugin execution not covered by lifecycle configuration: org.jbehave:jbehave-maven-plugin:4.0.5:unpack-view-resources (execution: unpack-view-resources, phase: process-resources)
• ERROR Resource Path - pom.xml /bddproject
• ERROR Location - line 70
• ERROR Type - Maven Project Build Lifecycle Mapping Problem

Resolution 1 - This is a very common error, associated with M2E plugin, and usually it goes away if we update the M2E to latest version. 

Resolution 2 - Use the QuickFix action in eclipse to mark the goal to be 'ignored'

If not use this link to figure out what needs to be done - https://www.eclipse.org/m2e/documentation/m2e-execution-not-covered.html

If eclipse does not throw any errors with your new jbehave project, then your project setup is successful, but your setup is far from complete!

7. External Dependencies -

At this point you can try adding/installing other software/libraries that you need for your project, as maven dependencies. Search and copy all the dependency coordinates from the Maven Central directly, nowhere else. Add these new dependencies above the 3 jbehave dependencies already present in the pom.xml

Add dependencies for the following

• Selenium
• Log4J
• Apache POI

Then the run the mvn command to resolve the dependencies

mvn dependency:resolve

Then download the required style-files for the reporting via:

mvn generate-resources

This is required only once, unless you run the clean command.

The tests can be executed via:

mvn integration-test

If this step results in BUILD SUCCESS then your basic project setup is correct and complete

Additional configuration can be done as below...

8. Configure Log4J

9. Add custom configurations for JBehave

JBehave Configuration for BDD

Custom Configurations for JBehave

1.   Meta Filters -

·      Meta filtering is most useful when we want to perform selective running of stories/scenarios.

To enable filtering in JBehave based on Meta tags, just add the following 3 lines in the MyStories class, under the Constructor [MyStories() - created as part of the simple archetype]

List<String> metaFilters = new ArrayList<String>();

metaFilters.add(System.getProperty("metaFilters", "-skip"));

configuredEmbedder().useMetaFilters(metaFilters);

·      Refer these links for more info
Enable Meta Filtering in JBehave
Passing and Reading Run Time Variables via Maven

2.   Avoid @Named annotation –

·      This makes jbehave interpret the name contained between the delimiters as the parameter name and look it up in the parameters provided by the Examples table. The default behaviour of parameter lookup is overridden via the ParameterControls.

·      This helps to avoid the use of @Named parameter annotation in the method definitions, and also avoids different aliases of steps

Refer this link - http://jbehave.org/reference/stable/parametrised-scenarios.html

Add this line in the end of configuration() method –

.useParameterControls(new ParameterControls().useDelimiterNamedParameters(true)

    

                             

3.   Change the delimiters to [] –

·      This would define the delimiters to be used for parameter names. This will enable us to use [ ] instead of the default < >, in parameter names.

Add this line in the end of configuration() method -

.useNameDelimiterLeft("[").useNameDelimiterRight("]"));

MyStories.java:

public class MyStories extends JUnitStories {

private final static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(MyStories.class);

public MyStories() {

configuredEmbedder().embedderControls().doGenerateViewAfterStories(true).doIgnoreFailureInStories(true)

.doIgnoreFailureInView(true).useThreads(2).useStoryTimeoutInSecs(300);

// Custom Config >> Added to enable meta tag based filtering

List<String> metaFilters = new ArrayList<String>();

metaFilters.add(System.getProperty("metaFilters", "-skip"));

configuredEmbedder().useMetaFilters(metaFilters);

}

@Override

public Configuration configuration() {

log.info("setting JB configurations");

Class<? extends Embeddable> embeddableClass = this.getClass();

// Start from default ParameterConverters instance

ParameterConverters parameterConverters = new ParameterConverters();

// factory to allow parameter conversion and loading from external resources (used by StoryParser too)

ExamplesTableFactory examplesTableFactory = new ExamplesTableFactory(new LocalizedKeywords(),
new LoadFromClasspath(embeddableClass), parameterConverters);

// add custom converters

parameterConverters.addConverters(new DateConverter(new SimpleDateFormat("yyyy-MM-dd")),

new ExamplesTableConverter(examplesTableFactory));

return new MostUsefulConfiguration()

.useStoryLoader(new LoadFromClasspath(embeddableClass))

.useStoryParser(new RegexStoryParser(examplesTableFactory))

.useStoryReporterBuilder(new StoryReporterBuilder()

.withCodeLocation(CodeLocations.codeLocationFromClass(embeddableClass))

.withDefaultFormats()

.withFormats(CONSOLE, TXT, HTML, XML))

.useParameterConverters(parameterConverters)

// Custom Config >> This makes jbehave interpret the name contained between the delimiters as the
// parameter name and look it up in the parameters provided by the Examples table

.useParameterControls(new ParameterControls().useDelimiterNamedParameters(true)

// Custom Config >> This would define the delimiters to be used for parameter names. This will
// enable us to use [ ] instead of the default < >, in parameter names

.useNameDelimiterLeft("[").useNameDelimiterRight("]"));

}

@Override

public InjectableStepsFactory stepsFactory() {

return new InstanceStepsFactory(configuration(), new MySteps());

}

@Override

protected List<String> storyPaths() {

return new StoryFinder().findPaths(codeLocationFromClass(this.getClass()), "**/*.story", "**/excluded*.story");

}


}

Install JBehave plugins for IntelliJ and Eclipse

For IntelliJ -

Go to add plugin section, then search the repositories for 'jbehave'
The following plugins [in blue] would be needed