Getting output of one scenario as input to another scenario in cucumber - cucumber

Question

I am using cucumber in combination with selenium for testing the java web application. The following is the Scenario that we have
get generate PIN page
enter user name
enter password
click on submit button
Now it generates a PIN in the database depending on so many calculations. now i need that particular PIN, to give it as an input to a different scenario. how can i achieve this? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I would assume that you can access the PIN within the database after the above scenario. That being the case, I would add one more step to the scenario that acquires - and confirms - that the PIN was indeed generated. At that point, you can store the PIN in a local variable and then use it within the next scenario.
So your first scenario would look like this:
Get generate PIN page
Enter user name
Enter password
Click on submit button
Confirm PIN number in database
The last step would not be done within Selenium, but via an API call or some other means to acquire the PIN from the database. It would confirm the PIN (e.g.; regex=/^\d{4}$/) and then store it in a local variable, say something like #customer_pin (assuming you're using Ruby).
Your next scenario would start off something like this:
Get generate login page
Enter customer ID
Enter customer PIN
etc
When you hit the "Enter customer PIN" step, you pull it from the locally stored variable (#customer_pin).
My advice is that when executing this second scenario, you confirm that you have a legitimate PIN within your locally stored variable, in case someone should run this scenario out of sequence. You could do this by using a global variable and running a "Before" hook in your features/support/env.rb file like this:
Before do
$dunit ||= false
return if $dunit
$customer_pin = nil
$dunit = true
end
In this case, I use $customer_pin instead of #customer_pin in order to make the variable globally accessible. Then after running your first scenario, $customer_pin would be assigned to a legitimate value so that it can be used in any subsequent scenarios. Subsequent scenarios would use the regex expression to confirm it has a legitimate value, and raise/throw an exception if not.

Answer 2

I would divide your problem into two.
One that verifies the pin generation as this may be important for your stakeholders.
One that implement a backdoor to support other cases where a valid PIN is needed. Maybe an API that is able to generate or retrieve a valid pin number. Maybe create and store the PIN in the database without touching the system from the outside. I would use this way to retrieve a PIN whenever I need a valid PIN for other scenarios.
The technical solution on how to get a valid PIN isn't too important. What is important is to decouple the execution order of the scenarios. The execution order of the scenarios is undefined. Each scenario must be able to be executed in isolation and in random order.
Coupling scenarios is a well known anti pattern described here and here.

Answer 3

To Solve this kind of situation you have to use Cucumber Background feature, This is run before each step. and will generate a PIN based on given inputs and then generated PIN will be available across the scenarios.
Find feature file definition based on your requirements.
Background:
Given I Get generate PIN page
Then I Enter user name
And Enter password
And I Click on submit button
And I Confirm PIN number in database
#TC01_GetUserInformationByPinTest #NoBrowser
Scenario: Get User information by generated PIN from background.
Given I Get User Information by using generated PIN
And I verified that given username is same as response Data
I believe this will help you to solve your issue.