How to handle logical OR operation from cucumber step in java

Question

I have a Cucumber step which I want to perform depending on the statement passed in Cucumber step

verify word does exists in log
clear the logs

or I may pass

verify word does not exists in log
not clear the logs

and Gherkin for this would be

("^verify word does(not|) exists in log$")
("^(|not )clear the logs$")

Can I handle this in Java?

I want to perform action depending up on the key I pass

Answer 1

Here is the solution in Ruby, it might give you an idea how to Updat your step and step def.

Step:

And verify word does exist in log
And verify word does not exist in log

Step Def:

And(/^verify word does( not)? exist in log$/) do |negative|
    if negative
        # negative logic
    else
        # positive logic
    end
end

Answer 2

I found the solution, I have done it in Java as below

 @Then("^verify word does(not|) exists in log$")
    public void verifyLogs(String action) {

        switch statement
        code logic

//or
        if(action.contains("not")){
            code logic
        }
}

Answer 3

Based on your examples, I'm assuming you have two different options ("does" or "does not"). You have several options of capturing this in your step definition, for instance

using capture groups:

@Then("^verify word (does|does not) exist in log$")

using regex:

@Then("^verify word (.*) exist in log$")

using Cucumber expressions :

@Then("verify word {string} exist in log")

Next, you'll have to implement the step definition, to do something different depending on whether or not the String you passed contains "not".

public void verifyLogs(String shouldContain) {
        if(action.contains("not")){
            // call helper method to verify logs **do not** contain the word
        }
        // call helper method to verify logs **do** contain the word
}

Alternatively, you could use two different step definitions: @Then("^verify word does exist in log$") public void verifyLogs(String shouldContain) { // call helper method to verify logs do contain the word }

and

@Then("^verify word does not exist in log$")
public void verifyLogs(String shouldContain) {
        // call helper method to verify logs **do not** contain the word
}

The upside of the last alternative is that your step definitions will stay very simple / don't contain any logic. The downside ofcourse is you have 2 step definitions, which is not a very big downside imho.