Welcome to the Gherkin to Robot Framework Converter project! This tool is designed to help you bridge the gap between Gherkin's human-readable specifications and Robot Framework's powerful automation capabilities.

This project aims to parse Gherkin .feature files and automatically generate .robot files suitable for execution with Robot Framework.

Gherkin is a Business Readable, Domain Specific Language (DSL) that lets you describe software’s behavior without detailing how that behavior is implemented. It is designed to be easy to understand by non-technical stakeholders.

Cucumber is a tool that executes Gherkin specifications. It reads Gherkin documents and runs the steps defined in them. These steps are typically written in a programming language like Python or Java.

The basic Gherkin syntax includes the following keywords:

• Feature: Describes a software feature, and groups related scenarios.
• Scenario: Describes a particular example of the feature's behavior.
• Given: Describes the initial context or preconditions.
• When: Describes an action or event.
• Then: Describes the expected outcome or result.
• And, But: Used to add more Given, When, or Then steps.

Robot Framework is a generic open-source automation framework. It can be used for test automation and robotic process automation (RPA). It has easy-to-use tabular syntax and it utilizes the keyword-driven testing approach. Its testing capabilities can be extended by test libraries implemented either with Python or Java.

Robot Framework's keyword-driven approach means that test cases are created using keywords, which are pre-defined or user-defined actions. This makes the tests easy to read and write, even for people who are not programmers.

Robot Framework can be used with Gherkin in a few ways:

• Converting Gherkin to Robot tests: This is what this project aims to do. By converting Gherkin .feature files into .robot files, you can leverage Robot Framework's execution engine and reporting capabilities.
• Using libraries: Some libraries allow Robot Framework to understand Gherkin syntax directly or provide a way to map Gherkin steps to Robot Framework keywords.

The following diagram illustrates the process of parsing Gherkin .feature files:

graph TD
    Input[".feature file (Raw Text)"] --> Lexer["Lexical Analyzer (Tokenizer)"]
    Lexer --> Tokens["Token Stream"]
    Tokens --> Parser["Syntax Analyzer (Parser)"]
    Grammar["Gherkin Grammar Rules"] --> Parser
    Parser --> AST["Abstract Syntax Tree (AST)"]

(Note: The original D2 source for a similar diagram is available in the diagrams/gherkin_parser_workflow.d2 file.)

This project utilizes a Gherkin parser, following the principles illustrated in the diagram above, to process .feature files. The core parsing logic can be found in src/gherkbot/parser.py. The Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) generated by this parser serves as the crucial structured data input for the src/gherkbot/converter.py module. This converter module is then responsible for transforming the Gherkin AST into executable Robot Framework test cases (.robot files).

• Parses Gherkin syntax from .feature files.
• Converts Gherkin scenarios into Robot Framework test cases.
• (Future) Maps Gherkin steps to Robot Framework keywords.

The ultimate goal is to provide a command-line interface (CLI) tool for seamless conversion of Gherkin feature files to Robot Framework test files.

Intended Usage (Under Development):

python -m gherkbot.cli --input path/to/your/file.feature --output path/to/your/outputfile.robot

• Input: Path to a Gherkin .feature file.
• Output: Path to the generated Robot Framework .robot file.

Currently, the CLI and the full conversion logic are under active development. You can explore the existing parser and converter modules directly:

• src/gherkbot/parser.py: Contains the Gherkin parsing logic.
• src/gherkbot/converter.py: Contains the logic for converting the parsed Gherkin AST to Robot Framework format.