Suggestion: allow direct scenario calls by using reserved tags for sugar coating call read

[Gokuroro]

The current Karate Way avoids the creation of new steps, but allows for calling scenarios by using a tag reference (example like @name=login).

My suggestion is to allow the use of reserved tags (like the @ignore tag) that allows the call of feature scenarios as part of the steps (as sugar coating for the internal call step).

Use format:

Feature: My Feature file with steps

@Given(I log into the application as "<username>")
Scenario: Some scenario name here
  * request { user: <username> }
...

@smoke-test
Scenario: My actual smoke test
   Given I log into the application as "my_user"
...

This could both make some (mostly UI) test cases more readable and more maintainable (in case of interface variation).

[sspears-deloitte]

• call read('/some/path/to/X.feature@smoke-test')

This is the current way to call specific scenarios by tag in a feature file. Does this work for your need?

[Gokuroro]

Thanks @stevenspears, as mentioned in the proposal, the idea is for it to be more of a sugar coating from the call step definition for better test readability.

My belief is that Karate is very good and going to the right places where it comes to making use of the Gherkin language, and I understand that adding new implementations to the mix through coding is not part of the Karate way, my suggestion is a sugar coating method (by the use of reserved tags) to do the call read method.

[ptrthomas]

@Gokuroro nope :) we are not going to go down the direction of Given I log into the blah ever. Karate is designed as a programming language (very close to JS). you can read a very detailed discussion on this here: #398