Advanced Test Design

Continuing from the tutorial on How to write a testcase?, this article focuses on the advanced aspects of EdenTest.

If you have implemented Login with invalid email and passwd should fail, your testsuite login_funtionality.txt should look like this.

*** Settings ***
Documentation       Test case to check the login functionality of Eden
Library     Selenium2Library
Variables         ../../execution/config.py
Test Teardown       Close Browser

*** Test Cases ***
Login with valid email and valid passwd should be successful
    Open Browser        http://${SERVER}/eden/default/user/login   
    Input Text      auth_user_email     admin@example.com
    Input Text      auth_user_password      testing
    Click Button        xpath=//input[@class='btn' and @value='Login']
    Page Should Contain     Logged in

Login with invalid email and valid passwd should fail
    Open Browser        http://${SERVER}/eden/default/user/login
    Input Text      auth_user_email     nottheadmin@example.com
    Input Text      auth_user_password      testing
    Click Button        xpath=//input[@class='btn' and @value='Login']
    Page Should Contain     Invalid login

Variables

What are Variables?

Variables are an integral feature of Robot Framework, and they can be used in most places in test data. Most commonly, they are used in arguments for keywords and settings. Eg: config.py contains variables like SERVER, APPNAME etc.

Types of Variables

There are three types of variables in Robot Framework:

• Scalars - ${SCALAR}
• Lists - @{LIST}
• Environment Variables - %{Environment Variable}

When to use Variables?

The use of variables is recommended in the following cases:

• When strings change often in the test data. With variables you only need to make these changes in one place.
• When different keywords, even in different test libraries, need to communicate. You can assign a return value from one keyword to a variable and give that as an argument to another.
• When values in the test data are long or otherwise complicated.

Using Variables

*** Variables ***
${LOGIN URL}        http://${SERVER}/eden/default/user/login
${SUBMIT}       xpath=//input[@class='btn' and @value='Login']
${EMAIL ID}        auth_user_email
${PASSWORD ID}     auth_user_password


*** Test Cases ***
Login with valid email and valid passwd should be successful
    Open Browser        ${LOGIN URL}
    Input Text      ${EMAIL}     admin@example.com
    Input Text      ${PASSWORD}      testing
    Click Button        ${SUBMIT}
    Page Should Contain     Logged in

Login with invalid email and valid passwd should be successful
    Open Browser        ${LOGIN URL}
    Input Text      ${EMAIL}     nottheadmin@example.com
    Input Text      ${PASSWORD}      testing
    Click Button        ${SUBMIT}
    Page Should Contain     Invalid login

Note: The *** Settings *** would remain as it is.

User Keywords

What are User Keywords?

Keywords are the functions of Robot Framework.

User Keywords are new higher-level keywords by combining existing keywords together. These keywords are called user keywords to differentiate them from lowest level library keywords that are implemented in test libraries. The syntax for creating user keywords is very close to the syntax for creating test cases, which makes it easy to learn.

Implementing User Keywords

In the example we have been following, we had to repeat few steps in both the testcases. We can take out those common steps into a higher level user keyword. Lets call it Login with email and passwd. It takes the email and passwd as the arguments.

*** Keywords ***
Login with email and passwd
    [Documentation]      Opens a browser to login url, inputs username and password
    [Arguments]     ${email}    ${passwd}
    Open Browser        ${LOGIN URL}
    Input Text      ${EMAIL ID}     ${email}
    Input Text      ${PASSWORD ID}      ${passwd}
    Click Button        ${SUBMIT}

*** Test Cases ***
Login with valid email and valid passwd should be successful
    Login with email and passwd     admin@example.com   testing
    Page Should Contain     Logged in

Login with invalid email and valid passwd should be successful
    Login with email and passwd     iamnottheadmin@example.com   testing
    Page Should Contain     Invalid login

Note: *** Settings ***, *** Variables *** sections stay as it is.