Specflow - How to use combination of multiple tables in scenario

Question

I am using Specflow to perform BDD tests. I am trying to test my navigation menu on multiple browsers. Particularly making sure that buttons are showing up accross browsers. I do not want to create a bunch of tests for each menu item specifically on each browser and I do not want to create a large table that goes over every browser/menu item combination. Is there any way to specify 2 tables and then create a single scenario that performs the combinations of both?

For example:

Menu Items Table

| menuItem |
| Home     |
| About    |
| Contact  |

Browsers Table

| browser |
| Chrome  |
| Firefox |
| IE      |

Scenario

Scenario Outline: I can see menu item
    Given I navigate to the "/" page using <browser>
    Then I can see the menu item <menuItem>

The expected result is that when this is run it would run 9 tests.

Answer 1

Personally I prefer enlisting all of the combinations. It can happen that one or two is not needed or you need to specify special expected values for each, etc.:

Scenario: Flat scenario
    Given I have the following config:
    | menuItem | browser |
    | Home     | Chrome  |
   #| Home     | IE      | - ok, this is not needed
    | Home     | Firefox |
    | About    | Chrome  |
    | About    | IE      |
    | About    | Firefox |
    | Contact  | Chrome  |
    | Contact  | IE      |
    | Contact  | Firefox |
    Then something happens

If you really want to create full combinations I would use Scenario Outline with examples:

Scenario Outline: Combined scenario
    Given I have the following config:
    | MenuItem | Browser   |
    | Home     | <browser> |
    | About    | <browser> |
    | Contact  | <browser> |
    Then something happens

    Examples:
    | browser |
    | Chrome  |
    | Firefox |
    | IE      |

Update:

In the underlying method the last parameter can be a Table . So in the example above you can get the table as follows:

[Given(@"I have the following config:")]
public void InitFromConfiguration(Table table)
{
    // now the table has MenuItem and Browser columns
}

Considering browser is constant for one test case I would change it as follows:

Scenario Outline: Even better combined scenario
    Given I have the following items in the specified <browser>:
    | MenuItem |
    | Home     |
    | About    |
    | Contact  |
    When I test the browser with the given menuItems
    Then I have no errors

    Examples:
    | browser |
    | Chrome  |
    | Firefox |
    | IE      |

[Given(@"I have the following items in the specified (.*):")]
public void InitFromConfiguration(string browser, Table menuItems)
{
    // now the browser comes from the Examples and menuItems has 3 rows
}

You can even define a transform step for menu items if you prefer strong types instead of Table :

[Binding]
public class MyTransformations
{
    [StepArgumentTransformation]
    public MenuItem[] ToMenuItems(Table table)
    {
        return table.Rows.Select(row => new MenuItem(row[0])).ToArray();
    }        
}

And now you can define your Given as follows:

[Given(@"I have the following items in the specified (.*):")]
public void InitFromConfiguration(string browser, MenuItem[] menuItems)
{
    ScenarioContext.Current.Set(browser, nameof(browser));
    ScenarioContext.Current.Set(menuItems, nameof(menuItems));
}

Do the test itself in the When step. This is how you will call DoTest 9 times after all:

[When(@"I test the (.*) with the given (.*)")]
public void InitFromConfiguration(string browserKey, string menuItemsKey)
{
    var browser = ScenarioContext.Current.Get<string>(browserKey);
    var menuItems = ScenarioContext.Current.Get<MenuItem[]>(menuItemsKey);

    // TODO: in DoTest you can collect and save the possible errors in the context
    foreach (MenuItem mi in menuItems)
        DoTest(browser, mi);
}

And finally in the Then step you can assert the possible errors you collected and stored into the context in the DoTest method.

Answer 2

The test you want to write:

Scenario: I can see menu items
    Given I navigate to the "/" page
    Then I can see the menu items:
         | Home     |
         | About    |
         | Contact  |

You should be aiming for the same functionality across browsers anyway, so simply run the entire suite of tests for each browser.

In a config file, specify the browser you want to run and when you are building the driver, check which browser you want to run from the config.