Robot Framework is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). It has easy-to-use tabular test data syntax and it utilizes the keyword-driven testing approach. Its testing capabilities can be extended by test libraries implemented with either Python or Java, and users can create new higher-level keywords from existing ones using the same syntax that is used for creating test cases. It is open source software released under Apache License 2.0, and most of the libraries and tools in the ecosystem are open source. The framework was initially developed at Nokia Networks and it is nowadays sponsored by Robot Framework Foundation.
Standard Libraries and Built-In Tools
These test libraries are distributed with Robot Framework:
- BuiltIn
- Collections
- Date Time
- Dialogs
- Operating System
- Process
- Remote
- Screenshot
- String
- Telnet
- XML
It has the following supporting tools built-in:
- Rebot
- Libdoc
- Testdoc
- Tidy
External SSHLibrary
SSHLibrary provides the ability to perform tests over SSH and SFTP. It is operating system independent and supports Python 2.7 as well as Python 3.4 or newer. This library is integrated with robotframework and is used by Apertis tests to enable testing of target devices without needing to install the Robot Framework directly on them.
Installation
The Robot Framework has been packaged in Apertis and can be installed on the SDK with the following commands:
$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install python3-robotframework python3-robotframework-sshlibrary
Verifying Installation
After a successful installation, we should be able to execute the Robot Framework with the --version option and get both Robot Framework and interpreter versions as a result:
$ robot –version
Robot Framework 4.0.1 (Python 3.7.3 on linux)
$ rebot –version
Rebot 4.0.1 (Python 3.7.3 on linux)