Robot Framework Gotchas…

Navigating Robot Framework maze…

If you have been using Robot Framework(RF) for longtime or a beginner you will definitely stumble upon following gotchas... Without further Ado here is the list…

1. When to use “…” or “\”

You are trying to write

RunKeywordAndReturnIf <condition> <action>

and want to make the code look nice so you move action to new line

RunKeywordAndReturnIf <condition>
 <action>

& run the code. You get error

Keyword ‘BuiltIn.Run Keyword And Return If’ expected at least 2 arguments, got 1.

This is because RF reads “\n” as new line and not continuation. You need to add “…” to make it a continuation of the line, so the code now looks like this,

RunKeywordAndReturnIf <condition>
… <action>

This brings us to the question, can I use “\” instead of “…” for continuation, as done in python. Answer is yes and no.

No because you cannot use it as line continuation character but

Yes you can use it as a block continuation character. Here is how you use it in RF

: FOR    ${INDEX}    IN RANGE    1    11
\    DoSomething      
\    DoSomethingMore

In the above example, “\” is used as block continuation character.

2. Does it matter if I use <space> or <tab> in calling a keyword.

Suppose you are implementing a conditional sequence like this…

***Testcase***
MenuGoto<tab>Cat1
***Keywords***
MenuGoto
<tab>[Arguments]<tab>${category}
${category} =       Convert To Lowercase    ${category}
RunKeywordAndReturnIf             '${category}' == 'cat1'
...                 MenuGoto<tab>Cat1
RunKeywordAndReturnIf             '${category}' == 'cat2'
...                 MenuGoto<tab>Cat2
MenuGoto<space>Cat1
   Log Cat1
MenuGoto<space>Cat2
   Log Cat2

And try to run the code, this will result in an error

Maximum limit of started keywords exceeded.

Why is that so… !!

It is because MenuGoto<tab>Cat1 recursively calls MenuGoto<tab>Cat1

Although we have declared MenuGoto<space>Cat1; RF is not able to find MenuGoto<tab>Cat1. So right way to declare this is

***Testcase***
MenuGoto<tab>Cat1
***Keywords***
MenuGoto
<tab>[Arguments]<tab>${category}
${category} =       Convert To Lowercase    ${category}
RunKeywordAndReturnIf             '${category}' == 'cat1'
...                 MenuGoto<space>Cat1
RunKeywordAndReturnIf             '${category}' == 'cat2'
...                 MenuGoto<space>Cat2
MenuGoto<space>Cat1
   Log Cat1
MenuGoto<space>Cat2
   Log Cat2

3. Does it matter if I use If Else or IF ELSE

Generally the answer to this question is that it does not matter. By RF is very specific about its cases…I burnt good few hours and some slack help from RF friends to finally get over this hurdle. Here is what I was trying to do.

`Login
[Documentation]     GetMyId . retry 3 times else fail
FOR    ${i}    IN RANGE    3
${status}=     Run Keyword And Ignore Error    GetMyId
Run Keyword If    '${status}[0]' == 'PASS'     Exit For Loop
...     Else If    ${i}==2         Fail
Log     After Failure still running
END

To naive user this seems simple enough. So just before exiting we mark Login Keyword to fail. But thats not what you get. Here is the log

As you can see it ran through the loop but never exited as a result of “Pass” or mark test “Fail” as a result of end of loop. Ideally at i==2 this should have failed. After struggling a lot, good friends from RF community suggested using ELSE IF instead of Else If . After doing that this got fixed here are the new logs

and new code looks as follows

Login
[Documentation]     GetMyId . retry 3 times else fail
FOR    ${i}    IN RANGE    3
${status}=     Run Keyword And Ignore Error    GetMyId
Run Keyword If    '${status}[0]' == 'PASS'     Exit For Loop
...     ELSE IF   ${i}==2         Fail
Log     After Failure still running
END

Are there any more Gotchas you have come across. Please let me know…