EBNF

Below is a detailed outlay of the grammar JBehave understands. It is expressed in EBNF.

; JBehave Grammar expressed in EBNF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_Backus%E2%80%93Naur_Form)
 
; The story describes a feature via description, narrative and a set of scenarios
Story := Description? Meta? Narrative? GivenStories? Lifecycle? Scenario+ ;
 
; The Description is expressed by any sequence of words that must not contain any keywords at start of lines.
Description := (Word Space?)* ;
 
; The meta is identified by keyword "Meta:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; It is followed by any number of meta elements
Meta:= "Meta:" (MetaElement)* ;
 
; The meta element is identified by keyword "@" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; It is followed by a name-value pair, where the value can be empty or have multiple words
MetaElement:= "@" Space? Word Space (Word Space?)* ;
 
; The narrative is identified by keyword "Narrative:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; It is followed by the narrative elements
Narrative:= "Narrative:" ( InOrderTo AsA IWantTo | AsA IWantTo SoThat ) ;
 
; The narrative elements
InOrderTo:= "In order to" NarrativeElementContent ;
AsA:= "As a" NarrativeElementContent ;
IWantTo:= "I want to" NarrativeElementContent ;
SoThat:= "So that" NarrativeElementContent ;
 
; The narrative element content is any sequence of characters that do not match a narrative starting word
NarrativeElementContent := ? Any sequence of NarrativeCharacter that does not match NarrativeStartingWord ? ;
 
; All characters are allowed in a narrative content, including newlines
NarrativeCharacter := ? Any Unicode character ? ;
 
; The narrative starting words (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale)
NarrativeStartingWord := ("In order to" | "As a" | "I want to" | "So that") ;
 
; The comma-separated list of story resources that specify the stories to be run before a story or a scenario
GivenStories:= "GivenStories:" (StoryPath ','?)+ ;
 
; The lifecycle is identified by keyword "Lifecycle:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; It is followed by the lifecycle elements
Lifecycle:= "Lifecycle:" LifecycleBefore? LifecycleAfter? Examples?
 
; The before lifecycle element identified by keyword "Before:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; followed by one or more steps
LifecycleBefore:= "Before:" (Scope? Step+)+
 
; The after lifecycle element identified by keyword "After:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; followed by one or more sets of scope, outcome, meta filter and steps
LifecycleAfter:= "After:" (Scope? Outcome? MetaFilter? Step+)+
 
; The scope element identified by keyword "Scope:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
Scope:= "Scope:" "STEP" | "SCENARIO" | "STORY"
 
; The outcome element identified by keyword "Outcome:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
Outcome:= "Outcome:" "ANY" | "SUCCESS" | "FAILURE" ;
 
; The meta filter element identified by keyword "MetaFilter:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
MetaFilter:= "MetaFilter:" (Word Space?)*
 
; The scenario is identified by keyword "Scenario:" (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale),
; which is optional in the case of a single scenario.
; It can optionally be followed by a title, which is expressed by any sequence of words
; that must not contain any keywords at start of lines.
; It is followed by one or more Steps.
; Scenarios can optionally contain comments (which are not part of the scenarios) after examples using "!--" keyword
Scenario := "Scenario:"? Title? Meta? GivenStories? Step+ Examples? (Examples Comment+)? ;
 
; The free-text description
Title := (Word Space?)* ;
 
; The word is any sequence of non-space characters that does not match a KeyWord
Word := ? Any sequence of NonSpaceCharacter that does not match KeyWord ? ;
 
; The space character
Space := ? Unicode space character ? ;
 
; The non-space character
NonSpaceCharacter := ? Any Unicode character except Space ? ;
 
; The keywords which are reserved (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale)
KeyWord := "Scenario:" | "GivenStories:" | "Given" | "When" | "Then" | "And" | "!--" ;
 
; The story resource path
StoryPath := PathCharacter+ ;
 
; The characters allowed in a resource path
PathCharacter := "/" | "." | "_" | Letter | Digit ;
 
; The letter characters
Letter := ? Any Unicode letter character ? ;
 
; The digit characters
Digit := ? Any Unicode digit character ? ;
 
; The scenario step is a step starting work followed by any number of characters
Step := StepStartingWord StepContent ;
 
; The step starting words (or equivalent in I18n-ed locale)
StepStartingWord := ("Given" | "When" | "Then" | "And" | "!--" ) ;
 
; The step content is any sequence of characters that do not match a step starting word
StepContent := ? Any sequence of StepCharacter that does not match StepStartingWord ? ;
 
; All characters are allowed in a scenario step content, including newlines
StepCharacter := ? Any Unicode character ? ;
 
; The examples table
Examples := "Examples:" ExamplesTable ;
 
; The examples table comprises of a header row and data rows
ExamplesTable := ExamplesTableHeader ExamplesTableRow+ ;
 
; The examples table header contains the column names, separated by ExamplesTableColumnSeparator
ExamplesTableHeader := (ExamplesTableColumnSeparator ExamplesTableCharacter+)+ ExamplesTableColumnSeparator  Newline ;
 
; The examples table row contains the column values, separated by ExamplesTableColumnSeparator
ExamplesTableRow := (ExamplesTableColumnSeparator ExamplesTableCharacter+)+ ExamplesTableColumnSeparator  Newline ;
 
; The examples table character can be any character, expect for ExamplesTableColumnSeparator and Newline
ExamplesTableCharacter := ? Any Unicode character except ExamplesTableColumnSeparator and Newline ? ;
 
; The examples table column separator
ExamplesTableColumnSeparator := "|" ;
 
; The comment
Comment := Any sequence of characters starting from "!--" keyword
 
; The new line character
Newline := ? Unicode newline character ? ;