Can a Cucumber feature pass a constant to a step definition?

Question

I have a library of XPATHs for a site whose XPATHs regularly change. I've written it because instead of going through every feature file and changing the XPATH it sends, I can simply change the value of the variables I have within my .rb library.

Is it possible to pass these constants to step definitions through the .feature file?

Example .feature feature file:

Scenario: I want to test a button
    When I go to url "blah"
    And I click on the XPATH: XPATH_CONSTANT_VARIABLE

Example .rb step definition:

When /^I click on the XPATH: {I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO PUT HERE}$/ do |path|
    @driver.find_element(:xpath, path).click
end

Example XPATH .rb library:

XPATH_CONSTANT_VARIABLE = "//*[@id="blahblah"]/div[1]/div/div[2]/div/div[1]/div/div[5]/div/div/div/div[2]"

Answer 1

Your scenarios are very imperative. I advice you to make them more declarative and don't use (or refer) to XPathes in scenarios. Read:

• You're Cuking It Wrong
• Imperative vs Declarative Scenarios in User Stories

---

If you really want to leave your scenarios as they are, you can use:

When /^I click on the XPATH: \w+$/ do |constant|
  xpath = Kernel.const_get constant
  @driver.find_element(:xpath, xpath).click
end

But putting all constants to global space as you did seems ugly to me. It may be better to put them to YAML file.