Robot Framework : Configuration Profiles - robotframework

Question

I have a configuration file that I am reading into my robot test cases. This configuration file contains the following variables:
${DATABASE_IP} 127.0.0.1
${ORACLE_SYSTEM_ID} xe
${ORACLE_DATABASE_URL} jdbc:oracle:thin:#${DATABASE_IP}:1521:${ORACLE_SYSTEM_ID}
${ORACLE_DATABASE_USER} cooluser
${ORACLE_DATABASE_PASSWORD} coolpassword
${ORACLE_DATABASE_DRIVER} oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
One thing I'd like to be able to do is change some of these properties, depending on where the script is executed from. Example: jenkins
A simple way to look at this, is say as follows:
I have a test file called database_test.robot.
If I invoke this file on my local machine, I'd like to pass in an argument to ensure ${DATABASE_IP} equates to 127.0.0.1 . When Jenkins does it, I want that value to point somewhere else.
Something like this already exists with maven, where you can specify a profile at runtime. Ex: mvn verify -Plocal-config ; mvn verify -Pjenkins-config
I have looked through the robot framework documentation, but cannot seem to implement something similar. The only way to swap out properties that I see is to remove the old and replace in the new. Note : I have hundreds of properties that will differ, and several other environments aside form Jenkins and local that would take different values.

Answer 1

Robot gives you at least three ways to solve this: argument files, variable files, and resource files. In each of the cases, you can specify which environment settings to use with a command line argument.
Argument files
Argument files are, as the name implies, files from which robot can read arguments. They are a convenient way to specify a group of command line arguments.
For example, you could create a "environments" folder that contains argument files for each of your environments (production.args, staging.args, local.args) and within the file you would set the values for all of the variables.
For example, you could create a file named local.args with the following contents:
--variable DATABASE_IP:127.0.0.1
--variable ORACLE_SYSTEM_ID:xe
--variable ORACLE_DATABASE_URL:jdbc:oracle:thin:#127.0.0.1:1521:xe
--variable ORACLE_DATABASE_USER:cooluser
--variable ORACLE_DATABASE_PASSWORD:coolpassword
--variable ORACLE_DATABASE_DRIVER:oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver
Then, to run with this configuration you would use the -A or --argumentfile option:
robot --argumentfile environments/local.args ...
The advantage to using argument files is that you can override single values on the command line for times when you need to change just one value:
robot --argumentfile environments/local.args --variable ORACLE_DATABASE_USER:anotheruser
Also, with argument files you can also specify any other command line arguments. For example, if you always want to ignore tests on your CI server that are known to be broken, you could include something like --exclude known-broken (where known-broken is a tag you've applied to one or more tests)
One downside to argument files is that you can't define variables based on the value of previous variables (ie: you can't do --variable FOOBAR=${FOO}bar). I've not found that to be much of a problem.
Variable files
Variable files work in a similar way, but let you define the variables with python. The advantage to variable files is that you can do anything that python lets you do. For example, you could automatically determine the IP of the local database, or selectively turn features on or off based on runtime conditions.
The simplest way to define a variable file is to simply create python variables, which robot will find by importing your file.
For example, the variable file for your variables might look like this:
DATABASE_IP = "127.0.0.1"
ORACLE_SYSTEM_ID = "xe"
ORACLE_DATABASE_URL = " jdbc:oracle:thin:#%s:1521:%s % (DATABASE_IP, ORACLE_SYSTEM_ID)
ORACLE_DATABASE_USER} = "cooluser"
ORACLE_DATABASE_PASSWORD} = "coolpassword"
ORACLE_DATABASE_DRIVER} = "oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"
Resource Files
Much like the other two solutions, you can have separate resource files for each environment. Since robot allows you to use variables in resource file paths within a suite, you can use a variable to define which resource file to use.
For example, you could import a resource file like this:
# some_tests.robot
*** Settings ***
Resource config/${environment}.robot
You would then create a config file for each environment like you normally would (eg: config/local.robot, config/staging.robot, etc). Then, when you run robot you can tell it which resource file to use:
$ robot --variable environment:local ...

Answer 2

I tried the third option with Resource files but given above command line argument statement:
$ robot --variable environment=local
Didn't work for me. After looking at the robot help file, came to know that variable values should be passed through : and not with =.
So I tried with:
$ robot --variable environment:local
And it worked for me.

Answer 3

The correct way to specify the Resource path for a subdirectory is:
Resource ../config/${environment}.robot
if config is a subdirectory.