What Is Robot Framework And How To Install It
Before we learn how the robot framework works, let’s get to know with automation testing first.
Automation testing is a software testing technique using automation tools to test a set of scenarios that have been created.
📍 Why we should implement automation testing on a system that is being developed?
Imagine if your team is making software with periodic feature changes in the new version that will be released, of course you don’t want any occurrences of users finding bugs when using the application. To avoid that kind of thing, testing must be done with various scenarios to find potential bugs in the app before it was released. If testing is done manually, it can take a lot of time and effort, besides, it can potentially result in errors such as different accuracy and consistency caused by human error. This is why automation testing comes in handy to help speed up the testing process with reliable result.
There are various types of automation testing that we can use now. All of these types have their advantages and disadvantages. One of the automation tools that is currently popular is Robot Framework.
Robot Framework is an open-source and python-based automation framework for the acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development process by implementing keyword-driven testing techniques.
The advantages of the robot framework compared to other automation tools include
- This framework is built in python based
- Has built-in keywords with a syntax that is easy to understand and learn by common people
- Generate descriptive and easy-to-read reports and logs
- This framework implementing keyword-driven testing techniques, it means that keyword will contain a set of steps that will be carried out during the testing process
📍 How is the architecture of Robot Framework?
The details of robot framework’s architecture include these parts
- Test Data
Test data contains test case documents or other resources that may be needed when executing the test case. This test case can also be inputted from the user’s computer file by implemented automation testing, it called data driven testing. We’ll talk about it later.
2. Robot Framework
Robot Framework is a framework for automated testing that is commonly used to interact with the tested system.
3. Test Tools
Robot Framework can be implemented in certain libraries such as Selenium2Library and SwingalLibrary, as well as other standard libraries such as BuiltIn and DateTime.
4. Test Tools
Robot Framework supports acceptance testing and acceptance test driven development testing by implementing keyword-driven testing techniques
📍 How to install Robot Framework in our computer?
The installation of robot framework is also very easy. We only need python, its own robot framework, and the selenium library that is well known in the automated testing world.
Here are the installation steps:
- Download and Install Python on PC. Yes, because Robot Framework itself is based on Python, then we have to install Python first. You can download it via the following link Download Python | Python.org
- After the download and install process is completed, we can check whether Python has been successfully installed on our PC by using the following command
python — version
The result will be like this. I am using Python version 3.7.4 here
3. The next step is to install Robot Framework using the following command
pip install robotframework
Because I’ve already installed it before, so the robot framework is already saved on my PC
4. Next, install the Selenium Library so the library can be used in our Robot Framework, because the selenium library itself already provides a lot of built-in keywords, we can install it using this following command
pip install robotframework-seleniumlibrary
The result will be like this
📍 What tools will we use for code automation testing?
Now the robot framework installation process is complete, what tools will we use for code automation testing? For the tools, there are several kinds of automation testing tools, depending on the preferences of each person. What I know so far for the tools we can use Eclipse, RIDE, and Visual Studio Code.
We will use Visual Studio Code as the tools. Here are the installation steps:
- Download and install Visual Studio Code, of course, because this will be the main tool for us. You can download it here Download Visual Studio Code — Mac, Linux, Windows
- Install the Python Extension for VSCode so your VSCode can support Python language
3. Install the Intellisense Robot Framework Extension so your VSCode can support the Robot Framework
Well done! With only those 2 extensions, we can code our script for automation testing in Visual Studio Code using the Robot Framework.
So, the conclusion of this article is robot framework can be used by any beginner nor expert, because its syntax is so easy to learn and understand by common people. So what are you waiting for? Lets explore this further 😉
I hope you learn and discover something new after reading this article. I am open for any discussion if you are interested in this framework. Stay safe and stay healthy~ ❤️
References
2. User Guide and Installation of Robot Framework in Visual Studio Code > Toshal Infotech
