Rake task fails with composite tag value option

[sashaCher]

Describe the bug

When cucumber rake task cucumber_opts field is a string and it contains composite tag option like --tags 'not @skip' cucumber rake task fails with No such file or directory - @skip'. You can use cucumber --init to get started. error.

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Create new cucumber rake task like this

   desc 'Run features'
   Cucumber::Rake::Task.new(:features) do |t|
     t.cucumber_opts = "--tag 'not @skip'"
   end
   task :cucumber => :features

   Where cucumber_opts task property is set to a string value ends by composite tag option, `` for example
2. Run the rake task bundle exec rake cucumber
3. See error: No such file or directory - @skip'. You can use `cucumber --init`

Expected behavior

The rake task is running scenarios meets chosen tags criteria.
In the above example all scenarios except having @skip tag will run.

Additional context

Looks like the next split is a root cause of the issue:

cucumber-ruby/lib/cucumber/rake/task.rb

Line 116 in 3ebc762

@cucumber_opts = String == opts.class ? opts.split(' ') : opts

[valerianb]

The preferred type is an array.

It should work fine if you pass:

t.cucumber_opts = ["--tag", "'not @skip'"]

[sashaCher]

Thank you @valerianb!
It's definitely worked.
I guess more strict approach to parameters validation/warning that preferred type is an array was able to save me couple hours of frustration after cucumber gem upgrade.

[aurelien-reeves]

Do you have ideas on how to improve things on that area?

The cucumber_opts has always worked that way and has always been documented as being better used with arrays rather than strings.

What changed with cucumber v4 more than 3 years ago now is the removal of the old syntax for tag expressions. Tag expressions can have space in it. I guess this is what caused your issue.

However changing support of strings for cucumber_opts in rake task would actually be a breaking change for a well known and documented feature. Would you have ideas to avoid such a breaking change? Are there some documentation in some places that may be updated to emphasize more the use of arrays rather than strings?

[sashaCher]

I guess that a warning that string type cucumber_opts does not support all options and it's recommended to use array type will improve troubleshooting around the code area.
Exactly like warning about ~ replacement by not was/is.
I've found also another example in the repo supports this approach

cucumber-ruby/lib/cucumber/formatter/unicode.rb

Line 20 in 9777e60

$stderr.puts("WARNING: Couldn't detect your output codepage. Assuming it is 1252. You may have to chcp 1252 or SET CUCUMBER_OUTPUT_ENCODING=cp1252.")

In my case I upgraded cucumber to version 7 and then ~ negation started throw an exception. Good, actually, exception with explanation what I need to do: to replace it by not. But replacing by not threw other exception, that it was quite hard to figure out what's a root cause of it.