In the previous tutorial, I explained the various types of Reports available in Cucumber. In this tutorial, I will explain how we can do Data-Driven Testing in Cucumber. Cucumber inherently supports Data-Driven testing by the use of the Scenario Outline and Examples section. Using these keywords, Cucumber allows for easy Data-Driven testing to be complete where no changes need to be made to the Java file (StepDefinition file).
Pre-Requisite
- Cucumber – 6.10.4
- Java – 11
- Selenium – 3.141.59
- Junit – 4.13.2 ( You can use TestNG also)
- Cucumber JUnit – 6.10.4 (If using TestNG, then replace this with Cucumber TestNG)
The project folder structure and code should be in the below state.

In case, the project uses Maven, we need to add the below dependencies to the project.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>org.example</groupId>
<artifactId>CucumberDemo</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<properties>
<cucumber.version>6.10.4</cucumber.version>
<selenium.version>3.141.59</selenium.version>
<junit.version>4.13.2</junit.version>
<maven.compiler.source.version>11</maven.compiler.source.version>
<maven.compiler.target.version>11</maven.compiler.target.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
<version>${cucumber.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
<artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
<version>${selenium.version}</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>${junit.version}</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>
<version>${cucumber.version}</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>${junit.version}</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.8.0</version>
<configuration>
<source>${maven.compiler.source.version}</source>
<target>${maven.compiler.target.version}</target>
<encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
Below is an example of Scenarios with a different set of data (no Scenario Outline).
@InvalidCredentials1
Scenario: Login with invalid username and password
Given User is on Home page
When User enters username as "Admin1" and password as "admin1"
Then User should be able to see an "Invalid credentials"
@InvalidCredentials2
Scenario: Login with blank username
Given User is on Home page
When User enters username as "" and password as "admin123"
Then User should be able to see an "Username cannot be empty"
@InvalidCredentials3
Scenario: Login with invalid credentials
Given User is on Home page
When User enters username as "Admin" and password as ""
Then User should be able to see an "Password cannot be empty"
The stepdefinition corresponding to the above feature file is
import io.cucumber.java.en.Given;
import io.cucumber.java.en.Then;
import io.cucumber.java.en.When;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
public class ScenarioOutlineDefinitions {
WebDriver driver;
@Given("User is on Home page")
public void userOnHomePage() {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver",
"C:\\Users\\Vibha\\Software\\chromedriver_win32\\chromedriver.exe");
driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.manage().window().maximize();
driver.get("https://opensource-demo.orangehrmlive.com/");
}
@When("User enters username as {string} and password as {string}")
public void entersCredentials(String userName, String passWord) throws InterruptedException {
System.out.println("Username Entered");
driver.findElement(By.name("txtUsername")).sendKeys(userName);
System.out.println("Password Entered");
driver.findElement(By.name("txtPassword")).sendKeys(passWord);
driver.findElement(By.id("btnLogin")).submit();
}
@Then("User should be able to see an {string}")
public void verifyErrorMessage(String expectedErrorMessage) throws InterruptedException {
String actualErrorMessage = driver.findElement(By.id("spanMessage")).getText();
System.out.println("Error Message :" + actualErrorMessage);
Assert.assertEquals(actualErrorMessage,expectedErrorMessage);
//close the browser
driver.quit();
}
}
TestRunner Class
Run the test by Right Click on TestRunner class and Click Run As > JUnit Test Application.
import io.cucumber.junit.Cucumber;
import io.cucumber.junit.CucumberOptions;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
@RunWith(Cucumber.class)
@CucumberOptions(monochrome = true, plugin = "pretty", features = "src/test/resources/Features/ScenarioOutline.feature",
glue = "definitions")
public class CucumberRunnerTest {
}
Below is the output of the above program:

Data Driven Testing using Scenario Outline
Scenario Outline – It is used to repeat the same tests by passing different values or arguments to Step Definition
Examples – All scenario outlines have to be followed with the Examples section. This contains the data that has to be passed on to the scenario in Feature File.
We can repeatedly do something like the above and check for each parameter that we want to test, but that will make tests hard to maintain with many repetitions. Instead, we can use a Scenario Outline to add different inputs or arguments to the same scenario. We can re-write it like this:
Feature: Example of Scenario Outline
@InvalidCredentials
Scenario Outline: Login with invalid credentials
Given User is on Home page
When User enters username as "<username>" and password as "<password>"
Then User should be able to see an "<errorMessage>"
Examples:
| username | password | errorMessage |
| Admin1 | admin1 | Invalid credentials |
| | admin123 | Username cannot be empty |
| Admin | | Password cannot be empty |
Note:- The table must have a header row corresponding to the variables in the Scenario Outline steps.
The Example’s section is a table where each argument variable represents a column in the table, separated by “|”. Each line below the header represents an individual run of the test case with the respective data. As a result, if there are 2 lines below the header in the Examples table, the script will run 2 times with its respective data.
When Cucumber starts to run this program, first, it will map parameters from the data table to placeholders like, and soon in the Feature File. The corresponding StepDefinition of Feature file is mentioned above. The steps can use delimited parameters that reference headers in the examples table. The cucumber will replace these parameters with values from the table before it tries to match the step against a step definition. There is no change in the StepDefinition as mentioned in the above example.
import io.cucumber.java.en.Given;
import io.cucumber.java.en.Then;
import io.cucumber.java.en.When;
import org.junit.Assert;
import org.openqa.selenium.By;
import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver;
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver;
public class ScenarioOutlineDefinitions {
WebDriver driver;
@Given("User is on Home page")
public void userOnHomePage() {
System.setProperty("webdriver.chrome.driver",
"C:\\Users\\Vibha\\Software\\chromedriver_win32\\chromedriver.exe");
driver = new ChromeDriver();
driver.manage().window().maximize();
driver.get("https://opensource-demo.orangehrmlive.com/");
}
@When("User enters username as {string} and password as {string}")
public void entersCredentials(String userName, String passWord) throws InterruptedException {
System.out.println("Username Entered");
driver.findElement(By.name("txtUsername")).sendKeys(userName);
System.out.println("Password Entered");
driver.findElement(By.name("txtPassword")).sendKeys(passWord);
driver.findElement(By.id("btnLogin")).submit();
}
@Then("User should be able to see an {string}")
public void verifyErrorMessage(String expectedErrorMessage) throws InterruptedException {
String actualErrorMessage = driver.findElement(By.id("spanMessage")).getText();
System.out.println("Error Message :" + actualErrorMessage);
Assert.assertEquals(actualErrorMessage,expectedErrorMessage);
//close the browser
driver.quit();
}
}
TestRunner Class
There are no changes in TestRunner class also.
import io.cucumber.junit.Cucumber;
import io.cucumber.junit.CucumberOptions;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
@RunWith(Cucumber.class)
@CucumberOptions(monochrome = true, plugin = "pretty", features = "src/test/resources/Features/ScenarioOutline.feature",
glue = "definitions")
public class CucumberRunnerTest {
}
Below is the output in Console:

Congratulations. We have seen an example of Scenario Outline. I hope this is helpful. Happy Learning!!
Nice explanation on parametrized testing in Cucumber. Good work!
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Thank You. Please go through other tutorials on Cucumber too
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