Automated Testing With Selenium And Cucumber

Web applications are now essential for organizations searching for new strategies to connect with and serve their target audience online. To ensure they provide excellent user experiences, they must thus be rigorously tested. Automation testing has overtaken manual testing as a preferred method for thoroughly evaluating web applications. 

Automation testing helps in saving time and money while thoroughly and quickly testing web apps for all potential issues. Selenium and Cucumber are both strong, all-encompassing, and widely used automated testing tools that are excellent for web application testing. 

Although Selenium is one of the best tools available for automation testing, due to the complexity of the code, it may be challenging for a non-technical person to comprehend how it works. This process is made easier by the use of Cucumber, which simplifies and clarifies the complex code. Therefore for automated testing, more and more organizations are combining Selenium and Cucumber.

In this article, we will learn how Cucumber and Selenium work together to automate testing and make tasks simpler for developers and testers. Let's first talk about each of them separately to gain a better understanding before moving on. Let’s get started.

What is Selenium?

One of the most well-known and often used open-source frameworks and toolkits for testing web-based applications is Selenium. Selenium automates browsers by imitating real user interaction with several browsers. Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, and Safari are among the supported browsers by Selenium. It is generally used for functional, regression, and web UI (User Interface) automation testing.

Selenium is simple to deploy on various platforms, including Windows and Linux. It also provides automation for mobile applications running on iOS, Windows Mobile, Android, and other operating systems.

Selenium is written in Java and provides an intuitive user interface for building and running test suites. Through the use of drivers tailored to each language, it supports a wide range of programming languages. With the help of Selenium, test scripts may be written in any of the supported programming languages, including Ruby, PHP, C#, Python, JavaScript, Perl, and Java, and they can be executed directly in the majority of current web browsers.

Additionally, Selenium has an integrated issue tracker that makes testing web applications quick and simple. Additionally, this tool works well for validating locally hosted pages, resolution display, compatibility with online browsers, and responsiveness of various screen sizes.

Selenium Components

Selenium is mainly comprised of a suite of tools, which include three components namely;   

Integrated Development Environment for Selenium (IDE)

Selenium IDE is a Chrome and Firefox plugin with the ability to record regular browser activity and generate its code in several programming languages. Users can create Selenium tests using this tool's record and playback features.

WebDriver for Selenium

Selenium WebDriver is a group of language-specific bindings that operate a browser per its requirements. It is a framework for the web that enables cross-browser testing. This tool is used to automate the testing of web applications to ensure that they function as expected.

Selenium Grid

Selenium Grid enables you to run tests concurrently across multiple devices and browsers. This indicates that numerous tests will be run simultaneously against different operating systems and web browsers.

Advantages of Selenium

Due to the following benefits, Selenium has grown to be one of the most popular automation tools among testers and developers worldwide:

Simple to Use

The Selenium automation framework is fairly simple to use when compared to other automation testing solutions. Additionally, it has a user-friendly interface that makes it simple to develop and run scripts. Users can examine full reports of the Selenium testing script, see the tests as they run, and take subsequent actions in addition to being able to monitor the tests as they are being run.

Support for a Wide Range of Operating Systems

Selenium is not only user-friendly but also supports various operating systems, including Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Test suites can be effortlessly created and run on several platforms, such as Windows.

Accessible Open Source

The open-source nature of Selenium is one of its main advantages. Anyone can use the open-source tool because they can get the source code. Additionally, it can be refactored following the needs of the project. Predefined classes and functions operate better as a result.

Using less hardware

Selenium takes up less space on the system than other automation testing tools like QTP, UFT, and SilkTest, which prevents the storage capacity from being overloaded.

Execution of Multiple Tests

The parallel execution of tests on various machines is also supported by Selenium. Users can run web application testing using the Selenium Grid on a variety of platforms and web browsers.

What is Cucumber?

With the help of the Behavior Driven Development (BDD) Framework, testers can write test scripts in simple English. BDD primarily focuses on testing the system as opposed to a specific piece of code. One of the best development tools in the Behavior Driven Development framework is cucumber. It is a tool that is utilized to create test cases for the functionality of applications that are easily readable and easily comprehensible by analysts, developers, testers, etc.

Cucumber was initially developed in the Ruby programming language and later added to the Java framework. Native JUnit is supported by both tools. Cucumber supports several different programming languages, including Perl, Ruby, PHP, Python, JavaScript, etc. despite being designed in the Ruby language. Because of this, testing web applications utilizing any of these supported programming languages is made simpler for the developers.

Its feature files can be used by everyone as a useful document. Similar to JBehave, several other programs support the BDD architecture. Because Cucumber employs Gherkin, which enables writing the test cases in plain English text that everyone can comprehend without any technical understanding, the test scripts are fairly simple.

In addition, the Cucumber automation tool integrates not just with Selenium but also with other additional automation testing solutions, like Watir.

How Cucumber testing operates is as follows:

• ● The Cucumber tool begins by reading the steps in the feature file written in plain English text or Gherkin.
• ● After reading the steps in the featured file, it looks in the step definition file for an exact match for each step. When it discovers a match, the tool runs the test case and outputs a pass or fail result.

Benefits of Cucumber

Well-Ordered and Easily Understood Test Cases

The test cases in Cucumber can be written in plain English. As a result, the test cases are well-organized and clear to all individuals engaged in the development and testing of the online application.

Reusable Test Cases 

Reusing Test Cases is Simple with Cucumber. Furthermore, all you need to do is locate its predecessor and reuse what was done previously if you want to construct a new test case that is identical to one of the web application tests that have already been created.

Simple Collaboration

Every stakeholder can participate in the development process because the Cucumber test code is simple to read. Anyone can create behavior scenarios for the web application, including testers, developers, product owners, and business analysts.

Early Detection of Defects

Unquestionably, one of the most important advantages of Cucumber is that it aids in the early identification of web application flaws. Additionally, Cucumber enables testers and developers in determining which features are functioning correctly and which are not.

Multiple programming languages supported

Numerous languages, including Java, PHP, JavaScript, Python, Perl, and Ruby, are supported by Cucumber. As a result, users can easily work with their favorite language without having to learn a new programming language.

Now that we are familiar with both Selenium and Cucumber. Let's continue with the topic and see why Cucumber is used with Selenium.

Automated Testing using Cucumber Within A Selenium Framework

The web application testing method includes both Selenium and Cucumber testing as crucial steps. Cucumber is an automation tool for behavior-driven programming, whereas Selenium is designed to automate testing across several browsers. 

Although there are some similarities between these two tools, they serve quite different purposes and have entirely separate functions. Selenium and Cucumber each have advantages and disadvantages, but by learning when to use each one and how to combine them, users may advance their web application testing process.

The development cycle is accelerated and made more accurate by automated Selenium testing, but Cucumber gives it a competitive edge and fosters greater collaboration with non-technical management stakeholders. Cucumber strengthens Automation Testing and is especially helpful for User Acceptance Testing, where the test scenarios are heavily influenced by behavior.

Why use Cucumber with Selenium?

Cucumber makes complex code easy to understand. Some organizations use Cucumber with a Selenium framework to enable reliable test automation that prioritizes plain English. As a result, they can:

• ● Create an understanding of how the application should function.
• ● Participate in the creation of the web application to thoroughly test it.
• ● Strengthen communication between programmers, testers, and decision-makers to jointly create the web application.
• ● Scalable automation of web testing across browsers.
• ● Execute tests in parallel on many machines that are written in simple English.
• ● Can accelerate the testing process.

Selenium, Cucumber testing using LambdaTest

To meet the increasing demands of quicker delivery and ideal quality on testers, test automation is crucial. How successful that journey is will partly depend on the tool users employ. Selenium's Cucumber framework is perfect for user acceptance testing because it enables test scenarios to be built using natural language structures that explain the expected behavior of the application for a specific scenario. You need support whether you choose Cucumber, Selenium, or another automation tool.

LambdaTest is a cloud-based platform for cross-browser compatibility testing that works with both the Selenium and Cucumber frameworks. It provides a Cloud Selenium Grid to enable automation testing for both live and automated purposes across 3000+ real browser devices and OS system versions.

Teams can conduct web and mobile testing in a secure, scalable, and reliable cloud environment with LambdaTest, which also provides quick parallel executions and quick feedback via reporting. Additionally, it facilitates the development of a cutting-edge test automation procedure with maximum coverage at scale.

With parallel testing and cross-browser compatibility testing to achieve more test coverage in less time, this platform accelerates the test execution process by carefully evaluating website performance. You can begin your free trial by simply going to the website, signing up, and running the Cucumber Selenium tests on the necessary operating system, device, and browser combinations.

Conclusion 

Although Selenium and Cucumber are both open-source testing tools and have significant overlap, they don't share any other characteristics. Cucumber is used for behavior-driven programming, whereas Selenium is used to automate web browsers. Finally, developers frequently use Selenium since it needs coding expertise. Cucumber is often used by business testers. For many organizations, Cucumber is the tool of choice since it is simple to use, legible, and has business functionality.