Step definitions as dynamic libraries

[paoloambrosio]

It might be possible to compile and link step definition files to separate dynamic libraries, and load them selectively: https://gist.github.com/2303589

This will bring a better overall experience. Executing Cucumber-Cpp should be something like:

$ cucumber-cpp --tags mytag --glue libsteps1.so --glue libsteps2.so --format progress features/some.feature
----................

4 scenarios (4 passed)
16 steps (16 passed)
0m0.039s
$

It will start a wire server, load steps libraries, and run Cucumber. Every command line argument that is not understood by Cucumber-Cpp (--glue/-g) will be passed down to Cucumber. It might even autoconfigure the port by writing the wire file and adding it to the step_definitions while calling the Cucumber command line.

Edit: clarified that it's about dynamic libraries and not executing scenarios

[barneywilliams]

Hmmm... again, I think going the other way around may be better. I already have a working runner that handles launching the cpp side using native hooks in cucumber. I think that would be better and easier to contain.

I don't think it would take much more work to handle the --glue args as well, and that would be a nice addition.

Let me know if you are interested in a pull request... ;)

[jamiebullock]

Shouldn't this be closed now? With the latest cucumber-cpp, I can run tests selectively with:

cucumber features/foo.feature:34

[muggenhor]

@paoloambrosio can you answer that? I don't know what the goal of this issue originally was. Your description seems to be less about dynamic libraries and more about control over which step definitions run at what time (with dynamic libs as a possible solution to that).

[paoloambrosio]

Running features with something like features/foo.feature:34 is implemented in Cucumber-Ruby. This was about loading step definitions from dynamic libraries.

I've updated the description.

[muggenhor]

Except for the dynamic library portion (startup and invoking) your describing a script a Python I wrote for our company's CI system: it starts the wire server, writes a cucumber.wire file with the right details and then starts cucumber with some parameters passed through. That's combined with some process monitoring to ensure proper handling of exit codes and standard output/error.

[paoloambrosio]

I'm going to close this and some other outdated issues if that's OK.