qaf-cucumber - can not reference data from CSV data provider in BDD2 scenario outline

Question

Context

I want to use qaf-cucumber to take advantage of QAF features while still using Cucumber with JUnit. Mainly, I need QAF for its data provider feature, allowing to externalize scenario examples in .csv in order to use them across several scenarios and features.

Junit: 4.12

Cucumber: 5.0.0-RC2

QAF: 2.1.15

qaf-cucumber: 2.1.15-beta-3 (most recent version, as there is no release yet)

---

Problem

When using the QAF tag @dataFile above a scenario to specify the location of the .csv:

• I get the INFO trace "c.qmetry.qaf.automation.util.CSVUtil - loading csv data file: src/test/resources/data/testdata.csv", as expected.

• the scenario is executed as many times as there are lines of examples in the .csv, as expected.

• In the steps, references like <column1> or ${column1} are considered as string instead of referencing the value of columns in the .csv.

Also (but I don't seek any solutions for those):

1. The QAF documentation about CSV says that @dataFile:resources/data/logintestdata.csv is equivalent to Examples: {"dataFile":"resources/data/logintestdata.csv"} for BDD2, but the second one does not trigger any scenario, as if no examples where given.

2. The QAF documentation about BDD2 syntax says that the Gherkin keyword Scenario should be used when using the QAF tag @dataFile. Nonetheless, doing so gives the stack trace below. Instead, the keyword Scenario Outline must be used.

java.lang.NullPointerException
    at java.util.Collections$UnmodifiableCollection.<init>(Collections.java:1026)
    at java.util.Collections$UnmodifiableList.<init>(Collections.java:1302)
    at java.util.Collections.unmodifiableList(Collections.java:1287)
    at gherkin.ast.ScenarioOutline.<init>(ScenarioOutline.java:13)
    at com.qmetry.qaf.automation.cucumber.Bdd2Compiler.compile(Unknown Source)
    at io.cucumber.core.feature.FeatureParser.compilePickles(FeatureParser.java:59)
    at io.cucumber.core.feature.FeatureParser.parseResource(FeatureParser.java:37)
    at io.cucumber.core.runtime.FeaturePathFeatureSupplier.lambda$new$0(FeaturePathFeatureSupplier.java:39)
    at java.util.function.BiFunction.lambda$andThen$0(BiFunction.java:70)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.ResourceScanner.lambda$null$2(ResourceScanner.java:128)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.PathScanner$ResourceFileVisitor.visitFile(PathScanner.java:67)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.PathScanner$ResourceFileVisitor.visitFile(PathScanner.java:52)
    at java.nio.file.Files.walkFileTree(Files.java:2670)
    at java.nio.file.Files.walkFileTree(Files.java:2742)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.PathScanner.findResourcesForPath(PathScanner.java:46)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.PathScanner.findResourcesForUri(PathScanner.java:26)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.ResourceScanner.findResourcesForUri(ResourceScanner.java:111)
    at io.cucumber.core.resource.ResourceScanner.scanForResourcesUri(ResourceScanner.java:88)
    at io.cucumber.core.runtime.FeaturePathFeatureSupplier.loadFeatures(FeaturePathFeatureSupplier.java:62)
    at io.cucumber.core.runtime.FeaturePathFeatureSupplier.get(FeaturePathFeatureSupplier.java:46)
    at io.cucumber.junit.Cucumber.<init>(Cucumber.java:138)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:423)
    at org.junit.internal.builders.AnnotatedBuilder.buildRunner(AnnotatedBuilder.java:104)
    at org.junit.internal.builders.AnnotatedBuilder.runnerForClass(AnnotatedBuilder.java:86)
    at org.junit.runners.model.RunnerBuilder.safeRunnerForClass(RunnerBuilder.java:59)
    at org.junit.internal.builders.AllDefaultPossibilitiesBuilder.runnerForClass(AllDefaultPossibilitiesBuilder.java:26)
    at org.junit.runners.model.RunnerBuilder.safeRunnerForClass(RunnerBuilder.java:59)
    at org.junit.internal.requests.ClassRequest.getRunner(ClassRequest.java:33)
    at com.intellij.junit4.JUnit4IdeaTestRunner.startRunnerWithArgs(JUnit4IdeaTestRunner.java:49)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.IdeaTestRunner$Repeater.startRunnerWithArgs(IdeaTestRunner.java:47)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.JUnitStarter.prepareStreamsAndStart(JUnitStarter.java:242)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.JUnitStarter.main(JUnitStarter.java:70)

---

Example

Cucumber runner at src/java/com

@RunWith(Cucumber.class)
@CucumberOptions(
        features = "src/test/resources/features",
        glue = "com.steps",
        plugin = {"com.qmetry.qaf.automation.cucumber.QAFCucumberPlugin", "pretty"})
public class RunCucumber {
}

Feature at src/test/resources/features

Feature: Cucumber scenario with QAF data provider

  @dataFile:src/test/resources/data/testdata.csv
  Scenario Outline: Test
     Given my scenario works with the examples "<column1>" and "<column2>"

testdata.csv at src/test/resources/data

#col.seperator=|
column1|column2
example1_column1|example1_column2
example2_column1|example2_column2

Step at src/test/java/com/steps

public class TestSteps {

    @Given("my scenario works with the examples {string} and {string}")
    public void myScenarioWorks(String value1, String value2) {
         // value1 equals "<column1>" and value2 equals "<column2>" !
    }
}

Answer 1

I tried with 2.1.15 and it worked for me. I was also getting above behavior with qaf-cucumber 2.1.15-beta-3 but when updated to qaf-cucumber 2.1.15 it worked fine.