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The Automated Steps Library is a project-level steps library organization for Cucumber Tests/PreconditionsPre-Conditions, containing all the Gherkin steps referred by all those Tests/Preconditions Pre-Conditions belonging to that project.
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The library is automatically populated with all the steps upon the creation/update of Cucumber Tests/PreconditionsPre-Conditions.
Gherkin reserved keywords (e.g. Given, When, Then, And) are not stored in the library.
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Please refer to Overview of the Automated Steps Library for a more detailed information of this feature. |
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Overview of the Automated Steps UI
The Test Repository The Automated Steps Library screen can be accessed from the project left sidebar by choosing the Test Repository Automated Steps Librar icon.
The image below depicts the several key areas of the Test Repository screen, which includes the Test Repository itself, along with some auxiliary folders.Automated Steps Library screen.
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A: Folders Steps section
- A1: "All" and "Orphans" metafolderssearch step based on given content
- A2: the Test Repository itself, composed of folders and sub-folders with Tests organized within them
- A3: CRUD actions for the current selected folder (e.g., create, rename, delete) A4: information about the number of Tests within the current folder and the total Tests, including sub-folders
B: Tests section
- restrict searching of steps to the givel labels
- A3: list of steps maching search criteria defined by A1 and A2
B: Step content section
- B1: step content (i.e. Gherkin sentence without the Gherkin reserved keywords)
- B2: information about the Test(s)/Pre-Condition(s) using the selected step
- B3: labels assigned to the step
- B1: path of the folder
- B2: filter for Tests
- B3: additional information about the shown Tests versus the actual total number of Tests within the current folder
- B4: ranked list of Tests within the current folder (only direct children)
Actions
A step can be selected by clicking on it. Once selected, you may update it, for example.
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Step 1: Write part of the step content (you may click on the search icon to enforce a search if needed).
Step 2: Select the labels to filter out the steps just containing the identified labels; this can be done before or after writting the step content to search for.
If more than one label is specified, then onl only steps containing all those labels are shown.
Merge / Refactor multiple steps
In order to keep your Automated Steps Library clean and sane, you'll need to do refactoring quite often
It may happen that you have redundant, similar steps. Thus, you may merge those steps and avoid duplicated specification & related code.
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Upon a steps merge operation, all Tests and Preconditions Pre-Conditions using it are updated accordingly. Only non-readonly Tests/Preconditions Pre-Conditions that the user is allowed to edit are updated; the other ones will remain as-is, leading to the simultaneous existence of original steps along with the merged one in the library, in this case. A merge operation may require some manual reviewing on the destination affected Tests/PreconditionsPre-Conditions. Example: two steps are merged to one having the content: "Given I have a turned on calculator"
As you can see from this example, in which the original Test/Precondition Pre-Condition contains the original steps, the merge operation does not remove duplicated steps in the destination Cucumber Scenario/Background. Thus, a manual process should be done on the affected issues in order to review the specification and remove the steps where desired. |
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To merge similar redundant steps, select t the content of an existing step (i.e. refactor it):
Step 1: Select the steps (see Actions above for information on multi-selection).
Step 2: Use the context action "Merge".
Step 3: Edit the merged step content on the right side; on the left side you can see the temporary merged step until you save it.
Step 34: Click on Save.
Find Tests and
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Pre-Conditions using a step
To find all the Tests or Preconditions Pre-Conditions using a given step:
Step 1: Click on the step.
Step 2: Click on the number shown below the step content box.
Step 3: The issues search will show all related issues.
Update / Refactor a step
The step content can be updated (i.e. renaming the step) directly in the Automated Steps Library for easy refactoring; all updatable Tests/Pre-Conditions will be updated accordingly.
Only non-readonly Tests/Pre-Conditions that the user is allowed to edit are updated; the other ones will remain as-is, leading to the simultaneous existence of original step along with the updated one in the library, in this case.
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It is also possibile to indirectly update steps during the edition of Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions; however, this inhibits refactoring. Whenever editing Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions, if the changed steps aren't being used elsewhere, then the existing steps will be updated accordingly; otherwise, new steps will be created. In other words, the library will contain all the steps, including the new/changed ones along with the "original" ones that being used in other issues. Thus, some care should be taken whenever editing Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions in order to avoid proliferation of similar steps. |
To update the content of an existing step (i.e. refactor it):
Step 1: Click on the step.
Step 2: Edit the step content on the right side.
Step 3: Click on Save.
Add Label
Label your steps so you can easily group similar steps and find them afterwards whenever you need them. Since steps may be related with different things simultaneously, you may add more than one label.
To add a label to an existing step:
Step 1: Click on the step.
Step 2: Click on labels input box to enter a new label or use the arrow dropdown to pick an existing one.
Step 3: Click on Save.
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Step 1: Click on the step.
Step 2: Click on the cross of the label in the labels input box or use the backspace after positioning the cursor after the desired label.
Step 3: Click on Save.
Settings
Enable/Disable
Upon installation of Xray or the upgrade from an earlier version of Xray, the Automated Steps Library is enabled by default.
Xray allows you to globally enable/disable the Automated Steps Library though.
A setting availabe in Xray Miscellaneous allows the administrator to enable/disable the library.
Whenever enabled, there's an additional performance overhead on the creation/update of Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions and upon the refactoring of existing steps within the Automated Steps Library UI.
On the other hand, disabling the library will avoid that additional processing overhead.
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if you disable the Automated Steps Library, all new steps that you added meanwhile or, in general, any changes that you have made to your existing Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions afterwards will not be synchronized to the library. This means that the Automated Steps Library may be out-of-synch. Synchronizing your existing steps with the library can be done with the Integrity Checker. |
Maintenance
Using the JIRA administration
Integrity Checker may be used to force a per-project synchronization of steps, in case you find orphaned or missing steps in the library.
Using project settings
An action is available in the project settings to force a per-project synchronization of steps.
Step 1: Go to project settings, Summary section.
Step 2: Go to Actions, at the top-right corner and choose "Import Automated Steps to Library".