Has anyone solved the riddle of how to apply SpecFlow Step Argument Transformations to cells in a table, in conjunction with the SpecFlow.Assist CreateInstance/CreateSet? (code combined here to save space)
Given a table like the following:
| Price | Zip | Effective Date |
| 10.00 | 90210 | in 2 days |
When the 'given' step executes
And the table data populates a poco
Then the effective date should be transformed into a DateTime with value of 2 days from today
[Given(@"a table like the following:")]
public void GivenATableLikeTheFollowing(Table table)
{
var temp = table.CreateInstance<Temp>();
}
internal class Temp
{
decimal Price { get; set; }
int Zip { get; set; }
DateTime EffectiveDate { get; set; }
}
[Binding]
public class Transforms
{
[StepArgumentTransformation(@"in (\d+) days?")]
public DateTime InXDaysTransform(int days)
{
return DateTime.Today.AddDays(days);
}
}
StepArgumentTransformation bindings apparently don't apply to table cell contents (since the step's argument is type Table), but somehow the SpecFlow.Assist CreateInstance/CreateSet will still transform cell data for basic types.
For example , if the Effective Date's contents are '11/13/2016' instead of 'in 2 days', the underlying poco's EffectiveDate property transforms to a DateTime just fine (or an int, decimal, etc).
I see some other solutions like applying a conversion within the step definition itself like here or creating a StepArgumentTransformation for the whole table, but... obvious cons. Update: this question is similar, but solutions also avoid mingling StepArgumentTransformation with CreateInstance/CreateSet.
There is also a section in the SpecFlow Assist Helpers docs about extending by registering value retrievers/comparers, but in my example, a DateTime set already exists. So, perhaps a custom DateTime type? It seems like perhaps there could be a check for StepArgumentTransformations on the known types, or something like that.
In the DateTime retriever, something like..
public virtual DateTime GetValue(string value)
{
var returnValue = DateTime.MinValue;
// check for StepArgumentTransformations here first?
DateTime.TryParse(value, out returnValue);
return returnValue;
}
Any ideas on what I am missing to get the StepArgumentTransformation to apply to the table cell contents when using table.CreateInstance? Or is one of the mentioned solutions the best/only way?
