Escaping of quotation marks in Cucumber steps and step definitions

Issue

When you have a Cucumber step like

CopyThen I should see "Did you see those \"quotation marks\" over there?"

you'll run into trouble. Cucumber won't take your escaped quotation marks.

Workarounds

One workaround is to write the step as regex (since there is a step taking a regex):

CopyThen I should see /Did you see those "quotation marks" over there\?/

Keep in mind it’s a regex – escape regex characters like '?'.

When you have a Cucumber step like

CopyThen I should fill in "query" with "\"some phrase\""

The following step will match any string that follows after colon and ends at the line end (and this string may include quotes):

CopyWhen /^I fill in "([^"]*)" with: (.*)$/ do |field, value|
   pending # express the regexp above with the code you wish you had
end

Using Spreewald

Or you can simply use Spreewald's Show archive.org snapshot Multiline String in your Scenario step:

CopyWhen I fill in "query" with: 
  """
  "some phrase"
  """

Also see How to use triple quotes inside a Cucumber docstring.