Pabot Robot
Elva Stuller
By default, Pabot will split execution on suite level. That means that each process will run a single suite.
Test Cases from the suite will be executed sequentially.
If you want to split execution on test level, you can use --testlevelsplit option. This will split execution on test level, so that each process will run a single test case.
--testlevelsplit
Split execution on test level instead of default suite level.If .pabotsuitenames contains both tests and suites then thiswill only affect new suites and split only them.Leaving this flag out when both suites and tests in.pabotsuitenames file will also only affect new suites andadd them as suite files.
--pabotlibhost [HOSTNAME]
Host name of the PabotLib remote server (default is 127.0.0.1)If used with --pabotlib option, will change the host listen address of the created remote server (see )If used without the --pabotlib option, will connect to already running instance of the PabotLib remote server in the given host. The remote server can be also started and executed separately from pabot instances:
--resourcefile [FILEPATH]
Indicator for a file that can contain shared variables for distributing resources. This needs to be used together with pabotlib option. Resource file syntax is same as Windows ini files. Where a section is a shared set of variables.
--artifacts [FILE EXTENSIONS]
List of file extensions (comma separated).
Defines which files (screenshots, videos etc.) from separate reporting directories would be copied and included in a final report.
Possible links to copied files in RF log would be updated (only relative paths supported).
The default value is png.
Examples:
When executed with the --testlevelsplit option, the Test Suite Setup and Test Suite Teardown will also be executed once for each parallel instance of the suite.The Test Setup and Test Teardown will be executed for each test case.
Example, I have file1.robot and file2.robotand each has $var as the variable. Can I pass 2 different values to this same $var in the command line? Something like pabot -v var:one:two file1.robot file2.robot where -v var:one:two would follow the order of the robot files; not by name but by how they were introduced in the command line?
In pabot readme file is mentioned something about shared set of variables and acquiring set for each running process. The documentation was bit unclear to me, but if you try following example, you'll see for yourself. It's basically pool of variables and each process can get set of variables from it and when it's done with it, it can return this set back to the pool.
The thing is pabot claims, that robot cannot be found. When I add robotframework to the system python, then I get an robot exception that pabot is an unknown library - which is crazy, since pabot started robot in the first place.
My system with the messed up PATH is a legacy windows server that is at least a decade old. It never got properly administrated, every software was installed adhoc by whoever needed it. I even found relicts if old python 2 installations on the PATH.
So, I'm working on a robotframework test project, and the goal is to run several test suites in parallel. For this purpose, pabot was chosen as the solution. I am trying to implement it, but with little success.
My issue is: after installing Pabot (which, I might say, I did by cloning the project and running "setup.py install", instead of using pip, since the corporate proxy I'm behind has proven an obstacle I can't overcome), I created a new directory in the project tree, moved some suites there, and ran:
Apparently, this has to do with something from the runner.py script, which, if I'm not mistaken, came with the installation of robotframework. Since manually modifying that script does not seem to me the optimal solution, my question is, what am I missing here? Did I forget to do anything while setting this up? Or is this an issue of compatibility between versions?
Since I can't use pip, and I tried a good deal of workarounds that eventually made things more unstable, I ended up saving my project and removing everything Python-related from my system, so as to allow me to install everything from scratch. In a Windows 10, 64bit system, I used:
I might add that, when installing the Selenium2Library the way I described above, it eventually tries to download some things from the pip repositories - which, if you have a proxy, will cause you trouble. I solved this problem by browsing , manually downloading the 2.53.6 .tar.gz file, then extracting it and running setup.py install on the command line.
PS: Ideally, though, anyone should be able to use proxy settings from the command line (--proxy :password@server:port) to get pip and then use it; however, for some reason, probably related to network security configurations that I didn't want to lose time with, this didn't work in my case.
Idea 1:
Checking the doco, there seems to be a section on Controlling execution order and level of parallelism, using an ordering file, though my guess is that if you had 2+ parallel robots and an odd number of tests in one suite there will be some overlap where tests from 2 suites will be executing at the same time (though hopefully in different processes) so this may be all you need?
Idea 2:
Another way of dealing with this which will definitely resolve the issue, would be take a step back from pabot and control it at the os level, use a shell/batch script to loop over the suite files with a for loop, then you call pabot with one suite_file.robot at a time, then pabot will finish the suite and exit before returning to the os shell script which then calls pabot with the next suite file.
Over the years, there have been monumental changes in the processes used for developing, testing, and delivering software. Development & release cycles have become considerably short, with Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery (CI/CD) catalyzing these changes.
This is where automated testing at scale can prove beneficial in unearthing bugs and increasing the overall test coverage. All of this can be achieved by accelerating the CI/CD pipelines with parallel tests (or parallel test execution). On a lighter note, parallel testing is one of the most trusted & reliable friends of CI/CD ?
Frameworks like pytest support parallel test execution out of the box, whereas parallel testing in Robot, PyUnit, etc., is enabled using supporting tools and libraries. In this blog on using the Robot framework for parallel test execution, I will cover how to run automation tests in parallel using the Robot framework on the local grid, as well as the cloud Selenium grid.
For starters, Robot is a popular Python-based extensible keyword-driven open-source framework. It is primarily used for test automation, Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD), Behavior Driven Development (BDD), and Robotic Process Automation (RPA ).
High-level keywords provide an abstract representation of the underlying business functionality. They improve the readability and maintainability of the test cases since they can encapsulate low-level keywords.
They should resonate with the actions being performed in the said use case. Consider a banking application (or website) where users need to login before doing any financial transaction. Login, Transfer Amount, etc., are some of the high-level keywords in line with the business case.
Low-level keywords represent the operations performed as a part of the test scenario. These keywords, defined in libraries or resource files, can be either custom-built libraries or built-in keywords provided by the Robot framework.
Keywords that are a part of the BuiltIn library and SeleniumLibrary in Robot can be leveraged in automating test scenarios. Should Contain, Should Be Equal, Skip If, etc., are some of the keywords that are a part of the BuiltIn library. Select From List By Value, Input Text, Click Button, Click Element, Wait Until Element Is Visible, etc., are some of the prominent keywords that are a part of the SeleniumLibrary.
Capture Page Screenshot, Capture Element Screenshot, Pass Execution If, Log, Log To Console, etc., are some of the technical keywords in Robot. For instance, the keyword to Capture Element Screenshot can be leveraged for capturing a screenshot of a certain WebElement and comparing it across different releases.
In the below-mentioned example, we capture the screenshots of the entire webpage and the Button element. The screenshots are placed in a customized directory instead of $OUTPUT_DIR (or present working directory).
The Remote Library Interface allows the test libraries to be run as external processes. It uses the XML-RPC protocol for communication; hence test libraries can be implemented for programming languages (e.g., Java, C#, JavaScript, etc.) that support the protocol. For example, the jrobotremoteserver is a remote server for the Robot framework implemented using Java.
Once the Robot framework receives the input data, it starts executing the test scenarios and generates detailed reports in HTML format. Robot also offers integration with popular reporting tools & dashboards like Allure, Report Portal, and Grafana.
As seen in the architecture diagram, Test Libraries act as the bridge (or interface) between the Robot Framework Core and SUT. Test libraries in Robot contain the keywords, thereby improving its maintainability & reusability.
Apart from Robot Standard Libraries, SeleniumLibrary in Robot can be extensively used when performing automated testing using the framework. Do check out this exhaustive list of Robot libraries that comprises mid-level (framework) Libraries, low-level (driver) Libraries, and Remote Libraries.
Test Cases in Robot consist of Test Steps that, in turn, use the Test Libraries for realizing interactions with the SUT. Like any other test automation framework, test cases can be organized in test suites for improved maintenance.
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