The Simplest Meal Possible

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The next scenario up is "Browsing a meal on a specific date":

  Scenario: Browsing a meal on a specific date
 
     Given a "Focaccia!" meal enjoyed on March 3, 2009
     When I view the meal
     Then I should see the "Focaccia!" title
     And I should be able to follow a link to the list of meals in March of 2009

That's a pretty weak Cucumber scenario. It describes only very superficially what a user would expect to see on a meal page (a title and a link to the list of meals in that month).

Users should also be able to follow links to:

• the list of meal in the current year (the year and month serving a breadcrumbs)


• recipes prepared for the current meal


• the previous and subsequent meals prepared

That's a lot not described by that scenario. So let's split it into two scenarios—one for browsing on a particular date and one between dates:

  Scenario: Navigating between meals

    Given a "Focaccia!" meal enjoyed on March 3, 2009
    And a "Star Wars: The Dinner" meal enjoyed on February 28, 2009
    And "Pumpkin is a Very Exciting Vegetable" meal enjoyed on December 3, 2008
    When I view the "Focaccia!" meal
    Then I should see the "Focaccia!" title
    When I click "Star Wars: The Dinner"
    Then I should see the "Star Wars: The Dinner" title
    When I click "Pumpkin is a Very Exciting Vegetable"
    Then I should see the "Pumpkin is a Very Exciting Vegetable" title
    When I click "Star Wars: The Dinner"
    Then I should see the "Star Wars: The Dinner" title
    When I click "Focaccia!"
    Then I should see the "Focaccia!" title

  Scenario: Browsing a meal on a specific date

    Given a "Focaccia!" meal enjoyed on March 3, 2009
    And a "Focaccia" recipe from March 3, 2009
    When I view the "Focaccia!" meal
    Then I should see the "Focaccia!" title
    And I should see a link to the "Focaccia" recipe in the menu
    When I click the "March" link
    Then I should see "Focaccia!" in the list of meals
    When I click the "Focaccia" link
    And I click the "2009" link
    Then I should see "Focaccia!" in the list of meals
    When I click the "Focaccia!" link
    And I click the "Focaccia" link
    Then I should see the "Focaccia" recipe

That's more like it! There are many new steps to be implemented, so I may as well get started immediately.

First up in the "Browsing a meal on a specific date" scenario is the Given step, "Given a "Focaccia!" meal enjoyed on March 3, 2009". When I run the entire scenario, it shows up in the output a yellow (not implemented). That's odd, I have yet to implement a "Given a meal" step?

Actually, I have:

Given /^a "([^\"]*)" meal enjoyed in (.+)$/ do |title, date_str|

Why doesn't that match "Given a "Focaccia!" meal enjoyed on March 3, 2009"? Ah, the text is on March 3, but the step implementation would only match in March 3. I can fix that with a simple RegExp character class:

Given /^a "([^\"]*)" meal enjoyed [io]n (.+)$/ do |title, date_str|

With that I have one Given step done. Cucumber tells me that I need to get the next one done:

You can implement step definitions for missing steps with these snippets:

Given /^a "([^\"]*)" recipe from March 3, 2009$/ do |arg1|
  pending
end

I take that and implement it in features/recipe_details.rb:

Given /^a "([^\"]*)" recipe from (.+)$/ do |title, date_str|
  date = Date.parse(date_str)
  @recipe_permalink = date.to_s + "-" + title.downcase.gsub(/\W/, '-')

  recipe = {
    :title        => title,
    :date         => date,
    :summary      => "#{title} summary",
    :instructions => "#{title} instructions"
  }

  RestClient.put "#{@@db}/#{@recipe_permalink}",
    recipe.to_json,
    :content_type => 'application/json'
end

Now I have reached the when-I-visit-the meal step, which I implement as:

When /^I view the "([^\"]*)" meal$/ do |arg1|
  visit("/meals/#{@meal_permalink}")
  response.status.should == 200
end

That step fails, of course, so it is time to work my way into the actual code. The example that describes the desired behavior (simply that it responds OK):

    describe "GET /meals/YYYY/MM/DD" do
      it "should respond OK" do
        get "/meals/2009/05/28"
        response.should be_ok
      end
    end

And the simplest thing to make this code pass is:

get %r{/meals/(\d+)/(\d+)/(\d+)} do |year, month, day|
end

Back in the Cucumber scenario, I expect the visit-the-meal step to pass, but am disappointed to find:

cstrom@jaynestown:~/repos/eee-code$ cucumber features \
    -s "Browsing a meal on a specific date"
Feature: Browse Meals

  So that I can find meals made on special occasions
  As a person interested in finding meals
  I want to browse meals by date

  Scenario: Browsing a meal on a specific date                   # features/browse_meals.feature:36
    Given a "Focaccia!" meal enjoyed on March 3, 2009            # features/step_definitions/meal_details.rb:1
    And a "Focaccia" recipe from March 3, 2009                   # features/step_definitions/recipe_details.rb:137
    When I view the "Focaccia!" meal                             # features/step_definitions/meal_details.rb:32
      expected: 200,
           got: 404 (using ==)
      Diff:
      @@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
      -200
      +404
       (Spec::Expectations::ExpectationNotMetError)
      features/browse_meals.feature:40:in `When I view the "Focaccia!" meal'
...

Ah, I am storing meals in CouchDB in ISO 8601 format, but the URLs for the Sinatra app have slashes (e.g. 2009/05/28). A simple gsub in the visit step will resolve my issue:

When /^I view the "([^\"]*)" meal$/ do |arg1|
  visit("/meals/#{@meal_permalink.gsub(/-/, '/')}")
  response.status.should == 200
end

And now I have three passing steps:



Next up, serious "inside" work, retrieving the meal, displaying it and the necessary links to implement the remaining steps in that scenario. Tomorrow.
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