Is there a way to get Robot Framework to run test suites in a certain order? - testing

Question

Suppose I have 2 test suites in the local directory, foo and bar, and I want to run the test suite in the order of foo then bar.
I tried to run pybot -s foo -s bar ., but then it just goes and run bar then foo (i.e. in alphabetical order).
Is there a way to get pybot to run robot framework suites to be execute in the order that I define?

Answer 1

Robot framework can use argument files that can be used to specify order of execution (docs):
This is from older docs (not online anymore):
Another important usage for argument files is specifying input files or directories in certain order. This can be very useful if the alphabetical default execution order is not suitable:
Basically, you create something similar to start up script.
--name My Example Tests
tests/some_tests.html
tests/second.html
tests/more/tests.html
tests/more/another.html
tests/even_more_tests.html
There is neat feature that from argument file you can call another argument file that can override previously set parameters. Execution is recursive, so you can nest as many argument files as you need
Another option would be to use start up script. Than you have to deal with other aspects like which operating system you are running test on. You could also use python for starting up script on multiple platforms. There is more in this section of docs

Answer 2

If there are multiple test case files in an RF directory , the execution order can be specified by giving numbers as prefixes to test case names , like this.
01__my_suite.html -> My Suite
02__another_suite.html -> Another Suite
Such prefixes are not included in the generated test suite name if they are separated from the base name of the suite with two underscores:
More details are here.
http://robotframework.org/robotframework/latest/RobotFrameworkUserGuide.html#execution-order

Answer 3

You can use tagging.
Tag the tests as foo and bar so you can run each test separately:
pybot -i foo tests
or
pybot -i bar tests
and decide the order
pybot -i bar tests || pybot -i foo tests
or in a script.
The drawback is that you have to run the setup for each test.

Answer 4

Would something like this be of any use?
pybot tests/test1.txt tests/test2.txt
So, to reverse:
pybot tests/test2.txt tests/test1.txt

Answer 5

I had success using a listener:
Listener.py:
class Listener(object):
ROBOT_LISTENER_API_VERSION = 3
def __init__(self):
self.priorities = ['foo', 'bar']
def start_suite(self, data, suite):
#data.suites is a list of <TestSuite> instances
data.suites = self.rearrange(data.suites)
def rearrange(self, suites=[]):
#Do some sorting of suites based on self.priorities e.g. using bubblesort
n = len(suites)
if n > 1:
for i in range(0, n):
for j in range(0, n-i-1):
#Initialize the compared suites with lowest priority
priorityA = 0
priorityB = 0
#If suite[j] is prioritized, get the priority of it
if str(suites[j]) in self.priorities:
priorityA = len(self.priorities)-self.priorities.index(str(suites[j]))
#If suite[j+1] is prioritized, get the priority of it
if str(suites[j+1]) in self.priorities:
priorityB = len(self.priorities)-self.priorities.index(str(suites[j+1]))
#Compare and swap if suite[j] is of lower priority than suite[j+1]
if priorityA < priorityB:
suites[j], suites[j+1] = suites[j+1], suites[j]
return arr
Assuming foo.robot and bar.robot are contained in a toplevel suite called 'tests', you can run it like this:
pybot --listener Listener.py tests/
This will rearrange childsuites on the fly. It's possible you can modify it upfront using a prerunmodifier instead.