Libraries¶
Robot Framework cannot do anything without libraries. Some generally useful libraries are distributed with it as standard libraries, but the real strength of the framework is the huge amount of external libraries provided by the community. If they are not enough, you can also easily create your own custom libraries.
Standard libraries¶
Standard libraries are distributed with Robot Framework as part of a normal installation.
Library | Description |
---|---|
BuiltIn | Contains generic often needed keywords. Imported automatically and thus always available. |
Collections | Contains keywords for handling lists and dictionaries. |
DateTime | Supports creating and verifying date and time values as well as calculations between them. |
Dialogs | Supports pausing the test execution and getting input from users. |
OperatingSystem | Enables performing various operating system related tasks. |
Process | Supports executing processes in the system. |
Remote | Part of the remote library interface. Does not have any keywords of its own. |
Screenshot | Provides keywords to capture and store screenshots of the desktop. |
String | Library for manipulating strings and verifying their contents. |
Telnet | Supports connecting to Telnet servers and executing commands on the opened connections. |
XML | Library for verifying and modifying XML documents. |
Note
Standard libraries in general work out-of-the-box, but some of them have external dependencies that need to be installed before they can be used. See library documentations themselves for more details about possible dependencies.
Spec files¶
Standard library spec files are hosted here as well. They contain library information in JSON format and can be used by external tools such as editors.
BuiltIn · Collections · DateTime · Dialogs · OperatingSystem · Process · Screenshot · String · Telnet · XML
External libraries¶
Robot Framework community has provided a huge amount of libraries for different usages such as web automation, REST APIs, databases, various GUI technologies and even mainframes. The best place to start looking for different libraries is https://robotframework.org.
Custom libraries¶
You can also easily create your own libraries for your specific needs. See the creating libraries section for more information.