Just double checking, there isn't a way to accept an arbitrary number of accepted values in a @Then definiton, right?

[AndrasBallai-ITNatives]

I'm very new to Cucumber, Gherkin and BDD/integration testing in general. As a java developer I'm always looking to increase reusability and strive for generalisation, from what I've seen, this clashes with Cucumber's, and in general, BDD's design philosophy, which is fine, I just wanted to explain my background a bit.

Is there a way for a general @Then definition?

What I'd like to achieve is something like this

@Then("I receive <thing1> or <thing2> or <thing3>")  
public void i_receive_any_of_things(String... things) {
    assertTrue(Arrays.asList(things).contains(someResult));
}

But in a way, where the string in the @Then is dynamic, accepting any number of supplied strings. Is this achievable with Cucumber/Gherkin, or, even if it is, I should not persue it and focus on concrete cases?

[luke-hill]

You could use either an examples table or a data table to pass in something more concrete dynamic and then parse that?

[mpkorstanje]

There are many ways to write a list of strings. So Cucumber won't guess.

You can define a parameter type for your list of strings:

    @ParameterType("(?:[^,]*)(?:,\\s?[^,]*)*")
    public List<String> listOfStrings(String arg){
        return Arrays.asList(arg.split(",\\s?"));
    }

Then you can use this parameter type in a step definition with a Cucumber Expression:

    @Given("a list of strings \"{listOfStrings}\"")
    public void a_list_of_strings_cucumber_expression(List<String> list) {
        System.out.println(list);
    }

But the nice way would be to use a table:

Given a list of things
 | cucumber |
 | zucchini | 
 | pickle   |

And then

Given("a list of things")
public void a_list_of_things(List<String> things) {
...
}