Display error in | Error message |in Specflow Nunit - nunit

Question

I am writing in Feature file where I need to display error message
Here is my code:
Scenario: Registration of Client with alphanumeric ClientName
Given I have logged in as Administrator user
And I have entered
| Field | Value |
| Client Name | ClientName2 |
When I goto Password
Then I should see :
| Client Name |
| ClientName2 |
Scenario: Registration of Client with ClientName containing symbols
Given I have logged in as Administrator user
And I have entered
| Field | Value |
| Client Name | Client#Name |
When I goto Password
Then I should see :
| Error Message |
| Please enter only Alphanumeric characters |
I think it using like this will be easy in step definition
Please let me know can I use error message in table like client Name
Or is it against the specflow rules?

Answer 1

It seems to me that your step is a little too specific for each case. Its not exactly clear what the filed name is meant to mean in your scenario.
you have this step:
Then I should see :
| Client Name |
| ClientName2 |
Which seems to imply that the tile (Client Name) is the field you want to look in and 'ClientName2' is the value you are looking for, and then you have this in the error case:
Then I should see :
| Error Message |
| Please enter only Alphanumeric characters |
Does this imply that there is a field called Error Message? If this is the case then I would set it up like you have done for the Given step and this as your first Then step:
Then I should see :
| Field | Value |
| Client Name | ClientName2 |
And this as your second Then step:
Then I should see :
| Field | Value |
| Error Message | Please enter only Alphanumeric characters |
If this does not represent a filed to look in then I would instead encode the different place to look in the actual step, and have a different step for checking for an error, like this:
Then I should see the client name 'ClientName2'
and
Then I should see the error message 'Please enter only Alphanumeric characters'
and make the implementation of these steps look in the correct elements on the page. This second approach has the advantage that if you decide to change how error messages are displayed (say they are warned on a popup) then you only need to change the implementation of the step which deals with the error message and you don't need to change every single step that uses an error message.
Ideally you would make your steps ignorant of the implementation. This makes the steps much more likely to be reusable.