cucumber-expressions: Bad (bad!) error message when using special characters.

[Izhaki]

Summary

Given (n) RETURN LIMIT

With:

Given('(n) RETURN LIMIT', (callback) => {
  // Write code here that turns the phrase above into concrete actions
  callback(null, 'pending');
});

Spits:

   ? Given (n) RETURN LIMIT
       Undefined. Implement with the following snippet:

         Given('(n) RETURN LIMIT', function (callback) {
           // Write code here that turns the phrase above into concrete actions
           callback(null, 'pending');
         });

I've just tried it 4051 times - copying your snippet to my code - and it doesn't work. It took 45 minutes - I could have watched another episode of Stranger Things instead.

Expected Behaviour

If I do what you tell me to do - it should work.

Current Behavior

I did what you told me to do - but it didn't work.

Possible Solution

If a step definition includes special characters, escape them in the snippet.

Much better than baffling us and make us find and read the docs:

If you ever need to match those parentheses literally, you can escape the first opening parenthesis with a backslash

Why should we fix this?

See Mind your output by Dan Abramov.

Related issues

#333 #107

[Izhaki]

By the way, I believe #334 is not published yet? In which case the docs are misleading.

  "devDependencies": {
    "cucumber": "^4.0.0",
  },

[aslakhellesoy]

Thanks for reporting this.

It was interesting to hear about how many times you tried and what you could have done instead. I'm not sure how it helps fix the bug ;-)

[aslakhellesoy]

Fixed in 5.0.14

[lock]

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