Robot Framework API documentation¶

This documentation describes the public API of Robot Framework. Installation, basic usage and wealth of other topics are covered by the Robot Framework User Guide.

Main API entry points are documented here, but the lower level implementation details are not always that well documented. If the documentation is insufficient, it is possible to view the source code by clicking [source] link in the documentation. In case viewing the source is not helpful either, questions may be sent to the robotframework-users mailing list.

Entry points¶

Command line entry points are implemented as Python modules and they also provide programmatic APIs. Following entry points exist:

robot.run entry point for executing tests.

robot.rebot entry point for post-processing outputs (Rebot).

robot.libdoc entry point for Libdoc tool.

robot.testdoc entry point for Testdoc tool.

robot.tidy entry point for Tidy tool.

See built-in tool documentation for more details about Rebot, Libdoc, Testdoc, and Tidy tools.

Java entry points¶

The Robot Framework Jar distribution contains also a Java API, in the form of the org.robotframework.RobotFramework class.

Public API¶

robot.api package exposes the public APIs of Robot Framework.

Unless stated otherwise, the APIs exposed in this package are considered stable, and thus safe to use when building external tools on top of Robot Framework.

Currently exposed APIs are:

logger module for test libraries’ logging purposes.
deco module with decorators test libraries can utilize.
TestCaseFile, TestDataDirectory, and ResourceFile classes for parsing test data files and directories. In addition, a convenience factory method TestData() creates either TestCaseFile or TestDataDirectory objects based on the input.
TestSuite class for creating executable test suites programmatically and TestSuiteBuilder class for creating such suites based on existing test data on the file system.
SuiteVisitor abstract class for processing testdata before execution. This can be used as a base for implementing a pre-run modifier that is taken into use with --prerunmodifier commandline option.
ExecutionResult() factory method for reading execution results from XML output files and ResultVisitor abstract class to ease further processing the results. ResultVisitor can also be used as a base for pre-Rebot modifier that is taken into use with --prerebotmodifier commandline option.
ResultWriter class for writing reports, logs, XML outputs, and XUnit files. Can write results based on XML outputs on the file system, as well as based on the result objects returned by the ExecutionResult() or an executed TestSuite.

All of the above names can be imported like:

from robot.api import ApiName

See documentations of the individual APIs for more details.

Tip

APIs related to the command line entry points are exposed directly via the robot root package.

All packages¶

All robot packages are listed below. Typically you should not need to import anything from them directly, but the above public APIs may return objects implemented in them.