How to separate table from .feature file (karate framework) - gherkin

Question

Here is a simple example:
Scenario: Table example
* table dogs
| name | age |
| 'Charlie' | 2 |
| 'Jack' | 4 |
| 'Rock' | 9 |
* match dogs == [{name: 'Charlie', age: 2}, {name: 'Jack', age: 4}, {name: 'Rock', age: 9}]
Is it possible to move table to another file, and just import it? If yes, how exactly?
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

If you are want to do this during design time, say, import a table from another data source, you can use some design tool CukeTest, which allow you to edit it visually, import data from a *.csv file into a Table or Example of the gherkin file. You can save a Excel data file to *.csv format.
If you want to do it at runtime, then there are a lot of ways to read data and parse it programmatically, typically from *.json file or *.csv file.

Answer 2

For this use case I recommend using JSON instead of a table and it will import nicely and have the advantage of being editable by most IDE-s etc.
* def dogs = read('dogs.json')
* match dogs == [{name: 'Charlie', age: 2}, {name: 'Jack', age: 4}, {name: 'Rock', age: 9}]
You could do this also:
* call read('dogs.feature')
* match dogs == [{name: 'Charlie', age: 2}, {name: 'Jack', age: 4}, {name: 'Rock', age: 9}]
And in dogs.feature
Feature:
Scenario:
* table dogs
| name | age |
| 'Charlie' | 2 |
| 'Jack' | 4 |
| 'Rock' | 9 |
EDIT: since some teams insist on Excel (which I don't recommend) refer to this answer also if applicable: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47954946/143475