Robot Framework test cases

Robotframeworks recognizes some well-defined patterns for it’s test cases. So test data should be entered in these special formats.

Following are the formats known by Robotframework:

n         HTML format

n        TSV format

n        Plain text (.txt) format

n        reStructured text format

HTML format: In HTML format test cases are written in tabular form. It has got separate tables for Settings, Variables, Test Cases and Keywords. The main problem with this format is that the tabular form becomes hectic sometimes as it is not very easy to format tables with normal text readers. In this form everything outside the table is ignored.

Eg

Setting	Value	Value	Value
Library	OperatingSystem

Variable	Value	Value	Value
${MESSAGE}	Hello, world!

Test Case	Action	Argument	Argument
My Test	[Documentation]	Example test
	Log	${MESSAGE}
	My Keyword	/tmp
Another Test	Should Be Equal	${MESSAGE}	Hello, world!

Keyword	Action	Argument	Argument
My Keyword	[Arguments]	${path}
	Directory Should Exist	${path}

TSV format: In TSV format all the data is fed into one table which can be formatted using some spreadsheet programs. The test data are recognized by one or more asterisks followed by a normal table name and an optional closing asterisks. Still it is not preffered to use TSV format over normal text format.

Eg

*Setting*	*Value*	*Value*	*Value*
Library	OperatingSystem
*Variable*	*Value*	*Value*	*Value*
${MESSAGE}	Hello, world!
*Test Case*	*Action*	*Argument*	*Argument*
My Test	[Documentation]	Example test
	Log	${MESSAGE}
	My Keyword	/tmp
Another Test	Should Be Equal	${MESSAGE}	Hello, world!
*Keyword*	*Action*	*Argument*	*Argument*
My Keyword	[Arguments]	${path}
	Directory Should Exist	${path}

Plain text format: This is the most popular data format for robot framework. In this format everything is similar to TSV format except the absence of table. In this content are separated by one or more spaces. This can be very easily edited by any normal text reader. In this the separator is space, so empty cells shouls be entered as ${empty} or /.

Eg 

*** Settings ***

Library       OperatingSystem

*** Variables ***

${MESSAGE}    Hello, world!

*** Test Cases ***

My Test

    [Documentation]    Example test

    Log    ${MESSAGE}

    My Keyword    /tmp

Another Test

    Should Be Equal    ${MESSAGE}    Hello, world!

*** Keywords ***

My Keyword

    [Arguments]    ${path}

    Directory Should Exist    ${path}

Restructured Text format: This is commonly used for the documentation of python projects. In this format simple formatted text is mixed with test tables and the complete file is recognized by robot frameworks. So text cases are embedded in the HTML format in the normal formatted document which are extracted while robot frameworks is parsing through the document. There is a tool called docutils which can easily process the restructured text. At present test cases in normal text format can’t be embedded in the reST file.

Eg

When the is in following format

 =========    ===============    ====================

Settings            Value                             Value

==========    ===============   =====================

Library               Selenium2Library

Test Setup          Open browser              about: browser=firefox

Test Teardown   Close all browsers

===========  ===============   ======================

============           ===================        =================

Test Cases                     Value                                         Value

============            ===================       =================

Plone.org is up              Go to                                          http://www.plone.org/

----------------------          ---------------------------------      ------------------------------

..                                    Capture page Screenshot            plone-org.png

============            ===================       =================

It gets converted by robotframeworks in the following format:

Settings	Value	Value
Library	Selenium2Library
Test Setup	Open browser	about: browser=firefox
Test Teardown	Close all browsers

Test Cases	Value	Value
Plone.org is up	Go to	http://www.plone.org/
	Capture page Screenshot	plone-org.png

This will now run similar to html test case.