How to Use Robot Framework

This article gives you a brief overview on how to use Robot Framework. You can refer this article to install Robot Framework, write custom library and how to use them to write test cases.

1. What is Robot Framework

Robot Framework is automation framework which allows end users to perform one of many following operations(Refer to official guide to know more use cases):

• Write Test Cases to validate Products/APIs.
• Write custom libraries to support API driven tests
• Import libraries to support testing.

If you want to know more about robot framework, you can know more about here: Robot Framework

2. Installation

In this section I will include necessary environment and setup details to use Robot Framework. I will be using virtual env to install/run test cases:

• Install zsh terminal on your machine
• Install virtualenv using virtualenvwrapper this allows end user to work on environment without re-installing it.

sudo pip3 install virtualenvwrapper

mkvirtualenv <virtual_env_name>

pip install robotframework

pip install robotframework-appiumlibrary

• Example for how to use virtual env: workon <virtual_env_name>
• Verify that you have Robot Framework and Python3 installed:

(virtual-dev) ➜ Desktop robot — version

Robot Framework 3.1.2 (Python 3.7.6 on darwin)

On this point following sections assumes that you have a working virtualenv which has robot framework and python3 installed. Use `robot — help` command to see your virtualenv has robot installed.

3. Code Directory Structure

You can follow below standard directory structure to host robot framework codes/libraries/docs etc:

Robot Framework Directory Structure

When you create a custom library you can also define a unique name (Example: `galaxy`) and you can use that to retrieve your keywords. I will cover that in following sections.

4. Use Custom Library

Before we jump on creating custom library, lets pick a very simple example where we will create Hello World keyword in a library and use that library in our test case:

1. Create a python file within your directory structure and add below context:

some/path ✗ cat custom_hello.py

def custom_hello():

print(“HELLO WORLD — California!”)

some/path ✗

2. Import created custom library file path in your test case as below:

*** Settings ***

Library custom_hello.py

*** Test Cases ***

Print Hello World # Test Case Name

Custom Hello # Out keyword defined in custom library python file

3. Now run your hello world file using robot command:

First Keyword Use — Hello World

So as you can see I have run a hello keyword successfully using a custom library.

5. Key Components

In hello.robot test case you noticed, there are mainly three components which are defined as below:

• Settings : This section includes library, resources, variables files and relevant settings needed to run your test cases
• Keywords: This section includes any custom keywords which are local to your test case/suite files.
• Test Cases: This section includes your test cases which you want to Run.

There might be more core components, so I would recommend to follow official guide.

6. Reports

Once you run any robot test case, it creates three main files related to logs:

• report.html
• output.xml
• log.html

You can either use them locally or feed to report portal as needed.

Example: