Top Cucumber Interview Questions & Answers

1. What is Cucumber?

Cucumber is a testing tool based on the Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) framework. It is used to run functional tests written in plain text and develop test cases for software functionality.

Since Cucumber offers a standard language for describing requirements and test scenarios, it facilitates collaboration between developers, testers, and business analysts in Agile software development approaches.

2. In which language is Cucumber software written?

Cucumber software is written in a Ruby programming language.

3. What are the advantages of using Cucumber?

• Its focus on end-user experience
• Cucumber is an open-source tool.
• Cucumber tests are written in plain-text English so people with no or less technical skills can also write scenarios
• It allows us to involve business stakeholders who can’t easily read code
• Allows quick and easy setup and execution
• High reusability of code in the tests
• It can be integrated with Selenium and other testing frameworks like TestNG

4. What is BDD?

BDD means behavior-driven development. In Behavior Driven Development, the tests are designed in plain English and are created from a more end-user perspective and describe the application characteristics.

It does not require any technical knowledge and is written in plain text and requires no technical clarity.

5. What are the similarities between BDD and TDD?

TDD stands for Test-Driven Development, and BDD stands for Behavior Driven Development.

In both techniques, the test is written before writing the code to pass the test and used as part of an automated testing framework to prevent bugs.

6. What are the main differences between TDD and BDD?

TDD is a development practice. In TDD, tests are difficult to read by non-programmers as they are written in specific programming languages.

BDD is a team methodology. BDD tests are readable by non-programmers also as they are written in a human-readable format.

7. Which language is used by the Cucumber tool?

Gherkin language, a simple English representation of the application behavior is used by Cucumber. The Gherkin language uses several keywords to describe the behavior of applications such as Feature, Scenario, Scenario Outline, Given, When, Then, etc.

8. What programming language is used by Cucumber?

Cucumber tool provides support for multiple programming languages such as Java, .Net, Ruby, etc.

9. What are the different types of testing that can be performed using Cucumber?

Cucumber is a testing tool that supports various types of testing, such as acceptance testing, functional testing, and regression testing.

10. Explain the purpose of keywords that are used for writing a scenario in Cucumber.

The given keyword is used to specify a precondition for the scenario.

When a keyword is used to specify an operation to be performed.

Then keyword is used to specify the expected result of a performed action.

And keyword is used to join one or more statements together into a single statement.

11. What are the files needed in a Cucumber framework?

• Feature File
• Step Definition file
• Test Runner file

12. What is a feature file?

The feature file has an extension of .feature. It has single or multiple test scenarios described in plain text. The tests are written with keywords like Given, When, Then, Background, Scenario Outline, Feature, And, But, and so on. Thus it is a file that maintains the features and their descriptions.

13. What is a Step Definition file?

This file has an extension of .java. It provides the mapping of the test scenario steps described in the feature file to the automation code. Thus when Cucumber runs a step described in the feature file, it searches the step definition file and executes the relevant functions that are mapped to that step.

14. What is a Test Runner file?

This file has an extension of .java. It links the step definition file and the feature file. It gives the user the option to execute one or more than one feature files. It has the path of the step definition file and the feature file.

15. What are the different keywords used in the feature file?

The basic keywords used in the feature file are Feature, Background, Scenario, Scenario Outline, Given, When, Then, And, and But.

16. What is the use of the Background keyword in Cucumber?

In the Cucumber tool, the Background keyword is used to group multiple given statements into a single group. The keyword is mostly used when the same set of given statements is repeated in each scenario of the feature file.

17. What is the use of a Scenario Outline in Cucumber?

Scenario outline is a way of parameterization of scenarios. This is used when the same scenario needs to be executed for multiple sets of data; however, the test steps remain the same. Scenario Outline must be followed by the keyword ‘Examples’, which specifies the set of values for each parameter.

18. How do you handle multiple data sets in Cucumber?

The simplest way is to use Scenario Outline and Examples tables in your feature file to handle numerous data sets in Cucumber.

19. What are data tables in Cucumber?

A data table in Cucumber is another way to pass multiple sets of data to a scenario. It is used to provide a set of inputs for a scenario and to make it possible to test the scenario with multiple sets of data.

20. What symbol is used for parameterization in Cucumber?

The pipe symbol (|) is used to specify one or more parameter values in a feature file.

Examples:
| name |
| cucumber |

21. What is the purpose of step definition in Cucumber?

In Cucumber, a step definition is the actual code implementation of the feature mentioned in the feature file.

22. What is the limit for the maximum number of scenarios that can be included in the feature file?

A feature file can contain a maximum of 10 scenarios, but the number can vary from project to project and from one organization to another. However, it is generally advisable to limit the number of scenarios included in the feature file.

23. Should we write code within the TestRunner class?

There is no need to write code under the TestRunner class. It should include the tags @RunWith and @CucumberOptions.

24. What is the purpose of the Cucumber Options tag?

The Cucumber Options tag is used to provide a link between the feature files and step definition files. Each step of the feature file is mapped to a corresponding method on the step definition file.

@CucumberOptions(features="Features",glue={"StepDefinition"})

25. What is the maximum number of steps that are to be written within a scenario?

There is no such limit to writing test steps. Scenarios should be short as long scenarios are hard to understand, and they are often indicative of poor practices. So, recommended that scenarios should have a single-digit step count (<10).

26. What is a dry run in cucumber?

A cucumber dry run is used to compile cucumber feature files and step definitions. It is run to find any compilation errors. If it finds anyone, it will show when we use a dry run.

27. What is the use of features property under the Cucumber Options tag?

In the Cucumber framework, the features property is used to identify the location of the feature files.

28. What is the use of glue property under the Cucumber Options tag?

The Glue property is used to facilitate the Cucumber framework to identify the location of step definition files.

29. What are hooks in Cucumber?

Hooks in Cucumber are blocks of code that are executed before or after each scenario. There are two types of hooks in Cucumber: Before and After. The Before hook is executed before each scenario, and the After hook is executed after each scenario.

30. What are Cucumber tags?

To categorize and arrange the scenarios and features in a feature film, Cucumber uses tags, which are like labels. A tag is a keyword that is preceded by the "@" symbol and the tag name.

@smokeTest
Scenario: Search for contact

31. How to ignore or skip a scenario in Cucumber?

Cucumber allows you to skip scenarios by adding the tag to the scenario and then using the Special symbol "~" within the tag. In Cucumber Options,

tags={"@SmokeTest", "~@RegressionTest"}

32. How do you write a comment in a feature file in Cucumber?

Add comments to feature files by using the "#" sign before the text you want to comment on.

33. How to run multiple feature files in Cucumber?

To run multiple feature files in Cucumber, use the Cucumber Options tag which is used to provide a link between the feature files and step definition files.

@CucumberOptions( features = {"featurefile1","featurefile2"},  glue = {"stepdefinition"})

34. How to generate reports in Cucumber?

The plugin option is used to generate different formatting reports in Cucumber.

@CucumberOptions(plugin = {"pretty" ,"html:reportname1.html"})

35. How many types of reports can be generated in Cucumber?

Three types of reports can be generated in Cucumber using the plugin option

• HTML report - This will simply generate a Cucumber HTML report
• JSON report - This report contains all the information from the gherkin source in JSON Format.
• JUnit Report - This report is generated in XML format.

36. What is the importance of a report in Cucumber?

A report in Cucumber provides a detailed overview of the test results like the number of tests that passed and failed, and the time taken to execute each test.

37. What are the differences between Jbehave and Cucumber?

Although Cucumber and Jbehave are designed for the same purpose, the most distinctive difference between them is that Jbehave is based on stories while Cucumber is based on features.

38. What do you understand by regular expressions?

A regular expression is a pattern used to describe a certain amount of text. The most basic regular expression consists of a single literal character.

39. What is the difference between RSpec and Cucumber?

The main difference between RSpec and Cucumber is the business readability factor. RSpec is mainly used for Unit Testing. On the other hand, Cucumber is mainly used for Behaviour-driven development.

40. How can you use the Options tag in the Cucumber framework?

In the Cucumber framework, the Options tag is a part of the TestRunner file and comes in the form of an annotation called @CucumberOptions. It contains two parameters feature and glue.

41. What is the use of hooks in the Cucumber framework?

The hooks are used to control the flow of the program and optimize lines of code. A block of code tagged with hooks in Cucumber can run before or post a scenario with the help of @Before and @After annotations.

The @Before hook executes before the actual scenario, and the @After hook executes after the actual scenario even if the test corresponding to the actual scenario fails.

42. Can we have 2 features in one feature file?

It is not possible to have multiple features inside single feature file. If you create multiple features inside single feature file, you will get Gherkin Parser exception while running cucumber scenarios. So the answer is NO.

43. Can we have 2 backgrounds in one feature file?

There can be only one Background in one Feature file and it allows us to set a precondition for all Scenarios in a Feature file. A Background is like a Scenario, containing a number of Steps.

44. Can we rename TestNG xml?

The TestNG.xml file name can be anything, you can change the name for xml file but it must have .xml extension.

45. What is the importance of test environment configuration in Cucumber?

The configuration of the test environment is crucial in Cucumber testing as it affects the behaviour and outcomes of the tests. A misconfigured test environment can lead to unexpected results and make it difficult to debug issues.

46. How to configure the test environment?

In Cucumber, some important aspects of the test environment that should be properly configured include:

• The version of the browser and the driver used for browser automation
• The version of the Cucumber library and its dependencies
• The test data and its setup
• The test reporting and logging configuration
• The test environment variables and settings

47. Difference between Selenium and Cucumber

• Cucumber is used for acceptance testing, while Selenium is used for automated UI testing.
• Cucumber is a behaviour-driven development automation tool that may be used with Selenium. Selenium is a web browser automation tool for web projects
• Cucumber isn't required for Selenium to work. Cucumber's step-definition implementation is based on Selenium

48. Name two build management tools that can be integrated with Cucumber

• Gradle
• Maven

49. How to set priority to tests in the Cucumber framework

We can set priority to tests in Cucumber to determine the order of execution. We use Cucumber hooks to control the flow of execution. But this can be modified with the help of the order.

50. What do you think when is cucumber used in real-time?

Cucumber tool is generally used in real-time to write acceptance tests for an application. It is generally used by non-technical people such as Business Analysts, Functional Testers, etc.