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Closures as Definitions and Hooks

The official best way to add step definitions and hooks is to write them as class or instance methods of a context class. But step definitions can be written in other ways too.

Some people dislike the verbosity of object-oriented PHP, where developers need to worry about method visibility (public, private) and whether to declare a method as an instance method or as static. On top of that, we have used annotations to tell Behat how our methods should be used. If you would like a more concise way to declare your step definitions, you’re in luck!

<?php

$steps->Given('/^I have ordered hot "([^"]*)"$/',
    function($world, $arg1) {
        throw new Behat\Behat\Exception\PendingException();
    }
);

$steps->When('/^the "([^"]*)" will be ready$/',
    function($world) {
        throw new Behat\Behat\Exception\PendingException();
    }
);

Closured Context

In order to use closures as definitions or hooks in your suite, you’ll need to extend your FeatureContext a little bit. To be able to load your closure files, Behat will need a way to actually find them first.

To use closures, your FeatureContext must implement the interface Behat\Behat\Context\ClosuredContextInterface. :

<?php

namespace Behat\Behat\Context;

interface ClosuredContextInterface extends ContextInterface
{
    function getStepDefinitionResources();
    function getHookDefinitionResources();
}

There are only two methods in this interface:

  • getStepDefinitionResources() - should return an array of file paths pointing to *.php files to be used as step definition resources.
  • getHookDefinitionResources() - should return an array of file paths pointing to *.php files to be used as hook definition resources.

The following example FeatureContext implements this interface:

# features/bootstrap/FeatureContext.php
<?php

use Behat\Behat\Context\ClosuredContextInterface,
    Behat\Behat\Context\BehatContext;

/**
 * Features context.
 */
class FeatureContext extends BehatContext implements ClosuredContextInterface
{
    public function getStepDefinitionResources()
    {
        return array(__DIR__ . '/../steps/basic_steps.php');
    }

    public function getHookDefinitionResources()
    {
        return array(__DIR__ . '/../support/hooks.php');
    }
}

Given this example, Behat will try to load step definitions from features/steps/basic_steps.php and hooks from features/support/hooks.php.

Step Definitions

Every *.php path returned by getStepDefinitionResources() will be loaded with the variable $steps already defined.

Use the provided $steps variable to define step definitions:

<?php

$steps->Given('/^I have ordered hot "([^"]*)"$/',
    function($world, $arg1) {
        throw new Behat\Behat\Exception\PendingException();
    }
);

In the previous example, we call a definition generator. This generator maps the provided closure to the given regular expression.

Just like their annotation counterparts, Behat does not distinguish between keyword methods (Given, When, Then) available via $steps, and uses them only to make your definition files more readable. In fact, the name of the method doesn’t matter one bit!

<?php

$steps->SomeUnexistentKeyword('/^I have ordered hot "([^"]*)"$/',
    function($world, $arg1) {
        throw new Behat\Behat\Exception\PendingException();
    }
);

The first argument to the definition generator is a regular expression, and the second argument is a closure that would be called when the regular expression matches your Gherkin step.

The first argument to the provided closure should always be an instance of FeatureContext. This is done for you to be able to share context information between scenario steps. Classes in PHP have $this, but closures have no concept of $this (at least until PHP 5.4):

<?php

$steps->Given('/^some context$/', function($world) {
    $world->someVar = 'someVal';
});

$steps->Then('/^outcome$/', function($world) {
    // $world->someVar === 'someVal'
});

Note

$world is always an instance of the main FeatureContext class. This means you should provide missing methods and properties for your subcontexts:

# features/bootstrap/FeatureContext.php
<?php

class FeatureContext
{
    public function __construct(array $parameters)
    {
        $this->useContext(new SubContext($this));
    }

    public function doSomething()
    {
        // ...
    }
}
# features/bootstrap/SubContext.php
<?php

class SubContext
{
    private $mainContext;

    public function __construct(FeatureContext $context)
    {
        $this->mainContext = $context;
    }

    public function doSomething()
    {
        $this->mainContext->doSomething();
    }
}

Hooks

Every *.php path returned by getHookDefinitionResources() will be loaded with the variable $hooks already defined.

Use the $hooks variable to define your hooks:

<?php

$hooks->beforeFeature('', function($event) {
    // prepare feature
});

$hooks->afterFeature('', function($event) {
    // teardown feature
});

You have the ability to call all hook types described in the “Hooking into the Test Process - Hooks” chapter. The only difference is that the method names are camel-cased (e.g. @BeforeFeature becomes beforeFeature()).

The first argument to all hook generators, except beforeSuite and afterSuite, is a tag filter.

In other parts, closure hooks are the same as normal annotated hooks.