Skip to main content

Cucumber Annotations

Two related capabilities: generating @Given / @When / @Then Cucumber annotations on step methods, and using those annotations to match steps to implementations by pattern instead of by method name.

Source: examples/common-use-cases/example-10 on GitHub.

What this demonstrates​

1. Generating Cucumber annotations​

  • @Gherkin2JUnitOptions(addCucumberStepAnnotations = true) adds annotations from io.cucumber.java.en.*
  • Each step method receives a @Given / @When / @Then with a pattern matching the original Gherkin step text
  • And / But steps inherit the keyword from the preceding Given / When / Then
  • Requires the cucumber-java dependency

2. Annotation-based step matching​

  • useCucumberAnnotationsForStepMatching is true by default
  • When the generator looks for already-implemented steps in the marker hierarchy, it matches by annotation pattern, not method name
  • You can use any method name you like — as long as the annotation pattern matches the Gherkin step text, the generator recognises the method as an implementation and won't emit a stub or abstract declaration

3. Two pattern styles work​

The annotation value can be either:

  • A Cucumber expression — e.g. @When("I apply discount code {string}")
  • A regular expression — e.g. @When("^I add \"([^\"]*)\" to the cart$")

Both are equally valid for matching, and you can mix the two within a single class.

Custom method names with annotation matching​

Gherkin stepCustom method namePattern styleAnnotation
Given I have an empty shopping cartstartWithEmptyCart()Cucumber expression@Given("I have an empty shopping cart")
When I add "..." to the cartaddItemToCart()Regular expression@When("^I add (?<p1>.*) to the cart$")
Then the cart should contain "..." itemsverifyCartSize()Regular expression@Then("^the cart should contain (?<p1>.*) items$")
When I apply discount code "..."applyDiscount()Cucumber expression@When("I apply discount code {string}")
Then the cart subtotal should be "..."verifySubtotal()Cucumber expression@Then("the cart subtotal should be {string}")

Because every step has a matching implementation on the marker class, the generated test class contains no step declarations at all — only the @Test scenarios that delegate to the inherited methods.

Supported parameter types in Cucumber expressions​

{int}, {long}, {short}, {byte}, {float}, {double}, {bigdecimal}, {biginteger}, {word}, {string}, and the anonymous {}. Custom parameter types are not currently supported.

Run it​

cd examples/common-use-cases/example-10
mvn test