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Every web development team undertakes a set of tests on its products, yet the web solution that is given later has flaws.
Even with the finest manual testing, defects inevitably creep in and reemerge, despite the efforts of the QA team to catch them before the first release.
When it comes to increasing the efficiency and scope of your software testing, automated web testing is your best choice.
For online testing, the Python programming language offers a robot framework that can leverage external libraries such as selenium.
In this post, we’ll go through test cases and other terms connected to the Python robot framework.
What is a robot framework?
Robot Framework is a flexible open-source generic automation framework written in Python that is used for automated software testing, robotic process automation, acceptance testing, and acceptance test-driven development.
In simple words, it is a Python-based keyword-driven test automation framework.
It enables testers to automate and maintain complicated process scripts efficiently. The framework can be used to test user interfaces and application programming interfaces.
It allows test engineers to utilize Selenium in addition to numerous other integrations. Selenium is an industry-standard tool for automating user behavior and scripting user-based web browser interactions for any website.
What is acceptance testing?
It’s a way of determining a system’s capacity. The goal of acceptance testing is to assess a system’s capabilities in relation to business needs.
What is robotic process automation?
RPA, or robotic process automation, is a method of minimizing human labor via using software that incorporates machine learning and AI capabilities. RPA is used to automate high-level, repetitive processes.
What is acceptance test-driven development?
Acceptance test-driven development, often known as ATDD, is a development technique that relies on communication between business customers, developers, and testers. They collaborate and conduct acceptance testing before deploying the feature.
Robot framework – High-level architecture
Robot Framework is a framework that is application and technology agnostic. Its architecture is very modular, as seen in the picture below.
The test data is presented in a simple, editable tabular format. Robot Framework analyzes data, conducts test cases, and creates logs and reports when it is started.
The core framework has no knowledge of the target under test, and libraries manage all interactions with it. Libraries can leverage lower-level test tools as drivers or directly employ application interfaces.
Features
- It facilitates data-driven testing by allowing for Test Automation for various data types.
- It avoids using significant amounts of code and instead uses a behavior-driven testing strategy.
- It can work with libraries and functions from third parties.
- Keywords (pre-defined or user-defined) are used in a tabular style to write test cases.
- Users can create keywords.
- Variables are allowed to be used.
- The Framework employs a keyword-driven method, in which scripts are written using tiny, easily understood terms (either pre-defined or user-defined).
- After each build, reports,
- and logs are created.
- It generates thorough reports and logs of the script’s execution status, which is particularly useful in the event that the script fails.
Robot framework tutorial
Let’s dive in.
1. Robot framework Installation
The pip package is suggested for installing the robot framework in Python. To install the framework, run the following command.
You should be able to view both the interpreter and robot framework versions after a successful installation using the -version option.
2. Libraries
- Builtin – This is a standard library that contains a set of commonly used keywords that are automatically imported and available at all times.
- Collection – It provides a set of keywords for working with Python lists and dictionaries. The library’s keywords can be used to change and create values from lists and dictionaries.
- Dialogs – A standard library for halting the execution and taking user feedback. Depending on whether if the tests are running, the dialogs are a bit inconsistent.
- DateTime enables you to generate and modify date and time information.
- Operating System – It enables the robot framework to do a variety of operating system-related tasks in the system while it is running. It can, among other things, carry out instructions and produce and modify data directly.
- Process – This library is used to run processes using Python submodules and the open class. The run process keyword is used to wait for a running process in the system and compile it.
- XML is also a text library used by the robot framework to verify and modify XML documents.
- The string is a package for manipulating and validating strings.
- Telnet applies that allows you to interact through telnet. The telnet library allows you to connect to a telnet server over a regular TCP/IP connection and perform commands.
3. Built-in tools
In a robot framework, there are primarily four built-in tools that are used:
- Rebot – Tools for creating logs and reports from XML output and merging numerous outputs at the same time.
- Testdoc — Based on test cases, Robot Framework creates high-level HTML documentation.
- Libdoc – Keyword documentation generator for libraries and resource files.
- Tidy – Robot Framework Tools for cleaning and converting data files to a different format.
4. Test cases
Instead of automated test cases, test cases in the robot framework can be written in basic English. The following tests can be used to classify the test scenarios.
- Workflow Tests
- Higher-level Tests
- Data-driven Tests
Workflow Tests
The robot framework’s test cases are frequently written in tabular syntax. A test case table’s first column contains the test names, and the test case begins with anything in the column and ends with the next test case name or the table’s end.
Let’s take a look at a real-world example to understand how this works.
- A user can create an account and log in.
- The user will be unable to log in if the password is incorrect.
High-level Tests
The second column typically includes a keyword name, with the exception of setting variables with keyword-written values.
The robot framework’s test cases can be built using just high-level keywords and no positional parameters. To further comprehend high-level testing, consider the following example.
Data-driven Tests
Data-driven testing isolates test data rather than simulating procedures. In the robot framework, the [template] setting defines the test case for a data-driven test.
5. Keywords
To build test cases in the robot framework, keywords from two sources are used.
- Keywords for a Library
- Keywords for the User
Keywords for a Library
Standard libraries define all of the lowest-level terminology, which may be implemented using computer languages like Python and Java.
Standard, external, and custom libraries are among the test libraries available with the robot framework. The core framework includes built-in, screenshot, OS, and other standard libraries.
Keywords for the User
The capacity to generate unique high-level keywords from existing phrases is one of the most important features of the robot design. To further understand how it works, let’s look at an example.
6. Variables
Variables are an important part of every test case in a robot framework. A variable is an excellent approach to specifying any data in a test case that is subject to change or variability.
Let’s have a look at how to define variables in a test case.
Specifying Variables
Aside from user-defined variables, the robot framework has built-in variables such as $TEMPDIR and $/, which we used in the prior example.
Making Use of Variables
Variables can be used anywhere in the test case.
However, they are most commonly used as keyword arguments. Consider the following example to illustrate what I mean.
7. Organizing test cases
Test case files are used to build robot test cases, but they can also be grouped into directories to create a test suite hierarchy. A test suite is a grouping of test cases. A test suite is comprised of all files containing test cases.
Using directories, the test cases can be structured in a hierarchy; all of these directories provide high-level test suites with names derived from the directory names.
Using Setups and Teardowns
The settings table’s “Test Setup” and “Test Teardown” options can be used to execute a specific keyword in a test before or after it is finished. You can also use “Suite Setup” and “Suite Teardown” to execute keywords before or after a test suite.
You can create custom [Setup] and [Teardown] in a test case, similar to [Template]. Consider the following scenario to better understand this.
Using Tags
The robot framework allows tags to be used to provide free metadata to test cases. “Force Tags” and “Default Tags” can be used to set tags in a file. [Tags], like [Template], can be used to assign tags to a single test case. Let’s look at an example to see how we use tags.
The report will include tags with test cases linked to them, as well as statistics based on the tags, after execution.
Pros
- It’s easy to set up Robot Framework.
- It’s based on using keywords.
- It enables you to use Gherkin.
- It works with both mobile and web-based apps.
- The Robot Framework’s fundamentals are easy to grasp.
- It uses a low-code approach.
- Windows, Mac OS X, Unix, and Linux are all supported.
- Python, IronPython, and PyPy are all supported programming languages.
- It works with all major web browsers.
- Robot Framework is a free-to-use, open-source automation tool.
Cons
- Parallel test execution is not supported by Robot Framework.
- The Robot Framework is difficult to keep up with.
- HTML reports in the Robot Framework are tough to alter.
- Debugging some Robot Framework issues might be tricky.
- Indentation is strictly enforced in the Robot Framework.
Conclusion
The Robot Platform is a free and open-source acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development framework.
The robot framework’s test cases are built on keywords expressed in a tabular style, which makes them easy to understand and gives accurate information about the test case’s meaning.
It’s really convenient and simple to use.
Some of you have used it before, so if you have your tests set up and your Android / iOS app ready to go, give it a try.
You’ll be astonished at how well things run and how soon acceptance testing can be completed.
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