Cucumber "Doc Strings" in Serenity Reports - serenity-bdd

Question

We are thinking to make some tests in Cucumber in the way of getting Living Documentation, and the key for the "Living documentation" is that in the "Then" we want to use "Doc Strings" (Json strings).
But, we realized that the "Doc Strings" are not shown in the Serenity Reports.
Is there any possibility to show the "Doc Strings" inside the Serenity Reports?
Thank you!

Answer 1

It is actually possible. I've created an example Git project that shows how to add custom messages to the Serenity test report using the StepEventBus API of Serenity BDD.
The complete code with further explanations is available at: https://github.com/datentyp/stackoverflow.com-questions-47492400-cucumber-doc-strings-in-serenity-reports
public class TestSteps implements En {
public TestSteps() {
Given("some scenario", () -> { /* implement me! */});
When("some step contains some doc string", () -> { /* implement me! */});
/* implement me */
Then("the content of that doc string should be included in the Serenity test report", this::showStepMessage);
}
public void showStepMessage(String message) {
// TODO: escape message string for use in HTML
String escapedMessage = StringUtils.replace(message, " ", " ");
StepEventBus.getEventBus().stepStarted(ExecutedStepDescription.withTitle(escapedMessage));
StepEventBus.getEventBus().stepFinished();
}
}
But note that if you really want to append some JSON Doc Strings to your Then steps than I think you might be trying to do the wrong thing in the first place.
You can capture the actual HTTP request/response that was send over the wire by using serenity-rest-assured. This way your reports will not only include the expected JSON payload but also the HTTP headers and payload of both, the request and the response.
If you are interested in this have a look at the documentation: http://thucydides.info/docs/serenity-staging/#_testing_rest_with_serenity_bdd