Why use Cucumber with Selenium for Test Automation?
Tags: webdev, selenium, automation
Published: 2023-05-12 07:32:58

Selenium is an open-source test automation framework and the Cucumber test framework supports Behavior Driven Development (BDD) and in certain scenarios, cucumber can be used with Selenium for carrying out test automation activities. A simple scenario is used to write the tests first that basically defines the system's expected behavior from a user's perspective. Cucumber tests are written in Gherkin Syntax, which is a human-readable and non-technical language. In this article, you will get to know how cucumber can be used with Selenium for test automation. 

## What is the Cucumber testing framework?

Cucumber testing is a type of Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) testing that uses the Cucumber tool so that test cases can be automated, defined and executed in a human-readable format. In a cucumber test scenario, test scenarios are written in Gherkin syntax, which is a simple and easy-to-use language that uses keywords such as When, Given and Then, so that steps of a test case are properly described.

Product owners and business analysts generally write these scenarios, so that they can have a clear idea of what needs to be tested. Several benefits such as improved test coverage, easier maintenance of test cases and increased collaboration between business stakeholders and developers are provided by the **[cucumber test](https://www.testingxperts.com/blog/cucumber-testing/ca-en)**.

## Using Cucumber with selenium for carrying out test automation activities:

When the cucumber testing framework is used with Selenium then those automated acceptance tests that are developed in a BDD format can be run easily. Plain-text descriptions can be interpreted properly. Tests written in feature files are used to run cucumber selenium testing. Feature files are easy to understand and are non-technical. The testing framework is Selenium and the BDD tool is Cucumber, which is used for testing at the user interface layer. 	

**Following is a simple cucumber test case example;**

**Given:** On the login page

**When:** Valid credentials are added

**Then:** check the account

There may be some team members who may be highly technical and some may be not that technical. Regardless of the testing level skills of various team members, they can still get involved in developing automation tests from tests based on workflow and business logic to create calls and objects and also define data sources.

Quite a good amount of programming knowledge is required for setting up test cases in Selenium, When it comes to the Cucumber test framework, anyone who knows to read, understand and write English can do a bit of practice and write test cases for the web app's interface. Selenium is mainly developed on Java. This means it can interact with the browser that is being used for interpreting the test instructions from Cucumber. 

**Cucumber test framework best practices:**

• The versions of Cucumber-junit, Cucumber-java and Cucumber-core should be the same for the purpose of attaining flawless connectivity.

• An after hook is added to the code so that screenshots can be captured when the test fails, which in turn helps in diagnosing the issues and thus debug it.
 
• Tests can be organized by using tags on tag definition. This can prove to be helpful in cases where all of the tests need not run every time. Tags can be used to mark such tests and run them as and when required. This will in turn save processing capacity and time of the resources and system.
  
**[Test automation activities](https://www.testingxperts.com/services/test-automation/ca-en)** are being leveraged because of the growing demands of providing optimal quality products and applications and also delivered at a faster pace. Test scenarios are allowed by the cucumber framework in selenium, which can be written using natural language constructs that describe the software's expected behavior for a given scenario. 

**Conclusion:** If you are looking forward to implementing cucumber testing or selenium testing for your project, then do get connected with a globally acclaimed software testing services company that will provide you with a comprehensive tactical strategy that is in line with your project specific requirements.