Scenario vs. Scenario Outline

Question

Background:

I'm currently writing behat tests (Mink/Selenium) for a Symfony2 webpage. I have a good deal of examples to go by, and actually writing them should be no problem. The step definitions are already written.

However, in the examples, they some times define a Scenario: and some times a Scenario Outline:

Question:

What is the difference between these two ways of defining a test?

Answer 1

From the official guide:

Copying and pasting scenarios to use different values can quickly become tedious and repetitive:

Scenario: Eat 5 out of 12
  Given there are 12 cucumbers
  When I eat 5 cucumbers
  Then I should have 7 cucumbers

Scenario: Eat 5 out of 20
  Given there are 20 cucumbers
  When I eat 5 cucumbers
  Then I should have 15 cucumbers

Scenario Outlines allow us to more concisely express these examples through the use of a template with placeholders

Scenario Outline: Eating
  Given there are <start> cucumbers
  When I eat <eat> cucumbers
  Then I should have <left> cucumbers

  Examples:
    | start | eat | left |
    |  12   |  5  |  7   |
    |  20   |  5  |  15  |

The Scenario Outline steps provide a template which is never directly run. A Scenario Outline is run once for each row in the Examples section beneath it (except for the first header row).

More in the Writing Features guide.

Answer 2

Scenario is what it is.

Scenario outline uses placeholders for faster testing.

https://github.com/cucumber/cucumber/wiki/Scenario-Outlines