Run cucumber steps in loop ONLY for few steps

Question

Is it possible to loop ONLY identified steps in cucumber scenario

For instance in the following example if I want to loop other steps except first. Because first step should run ONLY once

Scenario Outline: submit guess
  Given I am logged as Admin
  And the secret code is <code> 
  When I guess <guess>
  Then the mark should be <mark>

Examples: all colors correct
| code    | guess   | mark |
| r g y c | r g y c | bbbb |
| r g y c | r g c y | bbww |
| r g t g | r g w e | bbpp |

Is this possible in cucumber? Currently it runs all the steps four times as per the parameter values.

Thanks

Answer 1

It can be easily achieved using variables that act like a flag. Something like this

Before do
  if !$ran_once
   $ran_once = false
  end
end

Given(/^I am logged as Admin$/) do
  do something unless $ran_once
  $ran_once = true
end

Refer https://docs.cucumber.io/cucumber/api/#hooks

Answer 2

A Scenario Outline is meant to run the whole "scenario" but with different data each time. While you could setup a flag in the before hook, and then flag it the first time the step is run, you are leaking test state. This is generally a bad practice.

Instead it would be better to just use a scenario that uses a table for the validation step:

    Scenario: Submitting guesses
      Given I am logged as Admin
      Then my guesses display the correct colors:
        | code    | guess   | mark |
        | r g y c | r g y c | bbbb |
        | r g y c | r g c y | bbww |
        | r g t g | r g w e | bbpp |