Robot Framework - A Beginning with Automation Testing
Swapnil Tanpure
Vice President at The Bank of New York (BNY) | Blockchain | Crypto | AI Enthusiast
The first question comes into the mind, when you’re going to start or learn automation is, “How am I going to start the coding?”
First, forget about the coding part and think about the complete picture. We need automation to reduce human work, speed, repeatability, reusable and increase coverage.\
Now the main question is "How someone can write a code or script for Automating the application/module?
The best tool/framework I have come across is Robot Framework.
- Robot Framework(RF) is very easy to install and it is application or platform independent.
- RF makes it easy to a person with a less knowledge of automation to start developing automated test cases in an organization.
- The use of Selenium2 library in RF will help a person to automate the existing manual test cases of a project in a Rapid Phase.
- The best part is its outstanding Reporting system. The RF automatically generates a report after executing each build.
A first small program:
Here you can see the scripting style of Robot Framework. No coding knowledge required to write a Robot Script. We just need to call the predefined keywords like 'OPEN BROWSER', 'Click Button' etc. to handle the browser's actions.
Report after execution:
This it the reporting style of Robot Framework. When you execute the Robot Script, it automatically generates the Report of execution. It is plain html/xml format report which is very easy to understand.
Robot Framework Vs. Selenium WebDriver
Everyone gets confused why to go with Robot Framework instead we are having large support/community for Selenium Webdriver.
Q: So what is the difference between Selenium Webdriver and Robot Framework?
A: The question is completely wrong. Actually, the Robot Framework is created on top of the Python/Selenium. It is not different than Selenium. It imports the Selenium Library to run the test case or perform the browser's actions. User doesn't need a programming language to write a Robot Framework test case. You can write a test case in a simple natural language and just need to run it.
Some of the benefits of using Robot Framework:
- Robot Framework allows you to test more than just web-application(Selenium Webdriver covers only Web application testing).
- Robot Framework provides lots of libraries to test different application like Appium Library, Database Library, Android Library etc.
- Robot Framework is very easy to install and it is application or platform independent.
In this series of RF, I will share all my Robot framework learnings with you. Like working on different libraries, data driven, web application testing, API testing, desktop application testing etc.
So See you soon on my next blog.
Upcoming blog: Data-driven testing using Robot Framework.
For more blogs visit: http://my-testing-lab.blogspot.in/
Happy Testing!!!
Thanks,
Swapnil
Good one. I have jut started exploring RF. Any inputs into using this for DB testing ??
Créateur de Scrum Life, la première communauté francophone sur l'agile, Scrum et le Lean !
7yHi and thanks for the article -- a very good article! Your points are illustrated, that makes easy for people to get what you say without getting their hand into the tool itself. As for Robot Framework itself: you nailed it. It is one of the best tools around for testers. Your point about Robot Framework vs. Selenium is also very well made, indeed their are different/complementary tools and choosing between one or another is juste nonsense. Thanks again, and bravo!