UPDATE: This is probably obsolete by now!

I just learned that since v5.0 Cucumber.js supports promises out-of-the-box. I haven't tried it yet, but from the docs it seems that it works just as one would expect. So instead of using sugar-step you should probably just upgrade your cucumber.js. :)

sugar-step

Syntactic sugar for handling asynchronous step definitions in cucumber-js

The idea is that instead of this

  Given /^I have a trivial, synchronous step$/, (callback) ->
    trivial.but.intersting.stuff()
    callback()

  And /^there is also non-trivial, asynchronous stuff$/, (callback) ->
    do.stuff.that.produces.a.promise().then(
      () ->
        callback(), 
      (err) ->
        callback.fail(err))(
    )
    

you would generally prefer to write this instead:

  Given /$I have a trivial, synchronous step^/, ->
    trivial.but.intersting.stuff()

  And /$there is also a non-trivial, asynchronous stuff^/, ->
    do.stuff.that.produces.a.promise()

But out-of-the-box, cucumber-js won't let you do that, so I started looking for a solution. If you are like me and

• you use promises a lot
• you like your step definitions short

then this one may be just for you.

For a more detailed explanation of the How and the Why, please refer to the implementation.

Installation

npm install sugar-step

Usage

Something like this:

SugarStep = require 'sugar-step'

module.exports = ->

  # wrap the original step definition directive
  Given = When = Then = SugarStep @defineStep

  # ... and you're good to go

  Given /^I have (\d+) cukes in my belly$/, (numberOfCukes) ->
    @belly.cukes=numberOfCukes
    
  # etc.