How Can I Debug My Cucumber Right in the Middle of Test Run?

I am currently using cucumber/capybara to test my Rails app and now I’m facing a problem: how the heck can I debug my test right in the middle?

I have found a gem called pry-debugger and since I use pry, so I just want to give it a try.

Installation

  • Install gem “pry”, “pry-debugger” in Gemfile

      gem 'pry-rails'
  gem 'pry-debugger'

  • In support/env.rb require the gem

      require 'pry'

  • Put binding.pry before the line that you want to debug

  • just run bundle exec cucumber --tags @dev ; cannot run in Rubymine since there’s no pry console REPL

Reference Links
pry
pry-debugger

Pry Debugger useful commands

  • step: Step execution into the next line or method. Takes an optional numeric argument to step multiple times.

  • next: Step over to the next line within the same frame. Also takes an optional numeric argument to step multiple lines.

  • finish: Execute until current stack frame returns.

  • continue: Continue program execution and end the Pry session.

  • breakpoints: TBD

Tips

Stepping through code often? Add the following shortcuts to ~/.pryrc:

if defined?(PryDebugger)
  Pry.commands.alias_command 'c', 'continue'
  Pry.commands.alias_command 's', 'step'
  Pry.commands.alias_command 'n', 'next'
  Pry.commands.alias_command 'f', 'finish'
end