Implementation of shared state among cucumber steps in java

QAAuto :

I have two-page objects called OrderSelection and OrderDetails. In addition, I have SharedState class and OrderSelectionStepDef and OrderDetailsStepDef. I declared two variables for OrderSelection and OrderDetails in SharedState. However, they are not initialized in the constructor of SharedState. In OrderSelectionStepDef and OrderDetailsStepDef classes, I declared their constructors and pass SharedState object.

public OrderSelectionStepDef(SharedState sharedState) {
  this.sharedState = sharedState;
}    
public OrderDetailsStepDef(SharedState sharedState) {
  this.sharedState = sharedState;
}

When I call sharedState.orderDetails within OrderDetailsStepDef or OrderSelectionStepDef a NullPointerException was thrown.

Then, I initialized OrderSelection and OrderDetails class objects in SharedState constructor. Then the issue was solved. But is this implementation ok with cucumber pico container concept?.

TheSociety :

Step 1. OrderSelectionStepDef & OrderDetailsStepDef would look like below (please change name as per your implementation)

/**
 * Step Definition implementation class for Cucumber Steps defined in Feature file
 */

public class HomePageSteps extends BaseSteps {

    TestContext testContext;

    public HomePageSteps(TestContext context) {
        testContext = context;
    }

    @When("^User is on Brand Home Page (.+)$")
    public void user_is_on_Brand_Home_Page(String siteName) throws InterruptedException {
        homePage = new HomePage().launchBrandSite(siteName);
        testContext.scenarioContext.setContext(Context.HOMEPAGE, homePage);
    }

    @Then("^Clicking on Sign In link shall take user to Sign In Page$")
    public void clicking_on_Sign_In_link_shall_take_user_to_Sign_In_Page() {
        homePage = (HomePage) testContext.scenarioContext.getContext(Context.HOMEPAGE);
        signInPage = homePage.ecommSignInPageNavigation();
        testContext.scenarioContext.setContext(Context.SIGNINPAGE, signInPage);
    }

For your reference

public class BaseSteps {

    protected HomePage homePage;
    protected PLPPage plpPage;
    protected PDPPage pdpPage;
    protected ShoppingBagPage shoppingBagPage;
    protected ShippingPage shippingPage;

More implementation goes here.....  

}

Step 2. Please add below 2 Classes under your framework -

First, Java file name - ScenarioContext.java

public class ScenarioContext {

    private  Map<String, Object> scenarioContext;

    public ScenarioContext(){
        scenarioContext = new HashMap<String, Object>();
    }

    public void setContext(Context key, Object value) {
        scenarioContext.put(key.toString(), value);
    }

    public Object getContext(Context key){
        return scenarioContext.get(key.toString());
    }

    public Boolean isContains(Context key){
        return scenarioContext.containsKey(key.toString());
    }
}

Second, Java file name - TestContext.java

public class TestContext {

    public ScenarioContext scenarioContext;

    public TestContext(){
        scenarioContext = new ScenarioContext();
    }

    public ScenarioContext getScenarioContext() {
        return scenarioContext;
    }
}

Step 3. POM Dependency - picocontainer shall be as per your cucumber version

   <dependency>
        <groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
        <artifactId>cucumber-picocontainer</artifactId>
        <version>${cucumber.version}</version>
    </dependency>

Hope this helps.