How to mock backend interaction when running calabash tests

Question

I'm in the phase of integrating cucumber tests for an existing application. The app interacts heavily with a backend. The simplest case being the registration of an user.

In order to make the tests repeatable, I cannot go against the (real) backend (for several reasons, one not being able to register two users with the same e-mail).

I'd like to know which options do I have to mock the backend behavior and deliver mocked responses. For unit testing I know Nocilla and several other frameworks. Integrating them of course does not work for calabash tests.

One alternative would be to have a real server running which I'd control from the calabash tests to control the networking. But that seems a bit overkill. Another option would be to have mock objects in the calabash target which I could control via the calabash backdoor mechanism.

I doubt that aren't the only options. So my question is: is there a more elegant way to do so?

Answer 1

As I received no other feedback until today, I'll answer my own question.

We opted for the way of creating a very simple mock for our backend. We used Sinatra, but a node.js or similar technique would have led to the same result. The mock can be controlled via a simple REST API.

In the step definitions we configure our mock backend appropriately for the running scenario. It's a bit of overhead, because the mock has to evolve with the real backend, but until today it feels like a robust solution.