Context Injection and BeforeFeature hook

Question

I am trying to do some intial setup which sets up the environment for the scenarios under a particular feature. I clubbed the setup data in a separate class. I added a specflow hook file and modified it to serve as before feature hook. Then I tried using Context Injection. In the I created a private variable of the setup class and a constructor (taking an object of the setup class) for the BeforeScenario hook file.

The issue I am facing is that the BeforeFeature method has to static as per specflow. And if I make my private setup class static, then the constructor is not getting called.

Is what I am doing right? Or Is it even possible what I am trying to do?

[Binding]
public class BeforeFeature
{
    private static SetUp setUp;

    public BeforeFeature(SetUp setUpObject)
    {
        setUp = setUpObject;
    }

    [BeforeFeature]
    public static void RunBeforeFeature()
    {
        //Some processing. 
        setUp.baseDir = "some data";
        setUp.status = "some data"
    }
}

Sam Holder Sam Holder · Accepted Answer · 2014-10-07T09:01:10

You can tell SpecFlows context injection framework that you have an object it should use when a Step class asks for an instance in its constructor. This can be done like shown in the example:

[Binding]
public class BeforeFeature
{
    private readonly IObjectContainer objectContainer;
    private static SetUp setUp;

    public BeforeFeature(IObjectContainer container)
    {
        this.objectContainer = objectContainer;
    }

    [BeforeFeature]
    public static void RunBeforeFeature()
    {
        //Some processing. 
        setUp.baseDir = "some data";
        setUp.status = "some data"
     }

    [BeforeScenario]
    public void RunBeforeScenario()
    {            
        objectContainer.RegisterInstanceAs<SetUp>(setUp);
    }
}

You do the setup before the Scenario not the feature but if you only create the SetUp once and set its values in the [BeforeFeature] then you should get the same instance in each scenario so any modifications made there should stick (assuming this is what you want, otherwise just create a new SetUp in the BeforeScenario method)

As long as your Step classes now ask for a SetUp instance in the constructor they should get the one you placed in the container.

Context Injection and BeforeFeature hook

1 Answers