robotframework-excellibrary for Robot Framework

Introduction

Robotframework-excellibrary is a Robot Framework Library that provides keywords to allow opening, reading, writing and saving Excel files. The robotframework-excellibrary leverages two other python libraries xlutils and natsort. Xlutils installs xlrd that reads data from an Excel file and xlwt that can write to an Excel file.

• Information about robotframework-excellibrary keywords can be found on the ExcelLibrary-Keyword Documentation page.
• Information about working with Excel files in Python can be found on the Python Excel page.
• Useful pdf for practical use with Excel files here.

Requirements

• Python 2.7.4 (Newer versions not tested)
• Robot Framework 2.8.5 (Newer versions not tested)
• xlutils 1.7.1 (Newer versions not tested). Access the downloads here, or use pip install xlutils.
• natsort 3.3.0 (Newer versions not tested). Access the downloads here, or use pip install natsort.

Installation

Using pip

The recommended installation tool is pip.

Install pip. Enter the following:

pip install robotframework-excellibrary

Append --upgrade to update both the library and all its dependencies to the latest version:

pip install --upgrade robotframework-excellibrary

To install a specific version enter:

pip install robotframework-excellibrary==(DesiredVersion)

Manual Installation

To install robotframework-excellibrary manually, install all dependency libraries before installing robotframework-excellibrary.

1. Install Robot Framework installed.

2. Download source distributions (*.tar.gz / *.zip) for the library and its dependencies.

robotframework-excellibrary and dependencies:

• https://pypi.python.org/pypi/robotframework-excellibrary
• https://pypi.python.org/pypi/xlutils/1.7.1
• https://pypi.python.org/pypi/natsort/3.3.0

3. Extract each source distribution to a temporary location using 7zip (or your preferred zip program).

4. Open command line and go to each directory that was created from extraction and install each project using:

   python setup.py install
   

Uninstall

To uninstall robotframework-excellibrary use the following pip command:

pip uninstall robotframework-excellibrary

However, if the package was installed manually it will need to be uninstalled manually:

1. Navigate to C:\Python27\ExcelRobotTest and delete ExcelRobotTest.txt, and ExcelLibrary-KeywordDocumentation.html

2. Navigate to C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages and delete robotframework-excellibrary-0.0.2-py2.7.egg-info and the folder robotframework-excellibrary

Directory Layout

ExcelLibrary/ExcelLibrary.py : The Robot Python Library that makes use of the xlutils and natsort.

Tests/acceptance/ExcelRobotTest.txt : Example test file to display what various keywords from robotframework-excellibrary accomplish

doc/ExcelLibrary-KeywordDocumentation.html : Keyword documentation for the robotframework-excellibrary.

Usage

To write tests with Robot Framework and robotframework-excellibrary, ExcelLibrary must be imported into your Robot test suite. See Robot Framework User Guide for more information.

Running the Demo

The test file ExcelRobotTest.txt, is an easily executable test for Robot Framework using robotframework-excellibrary. For in depth detail on how the keywords function, read the Keyword documentation found here : Keyword Documentation

To run the test navigate to the Tests directory in C:\Python folder. Open a command prompt within the Tests/acceptance folder and run:

pybot ExcelRobotTest.txt

Things to Note When Using robotframework-excellibrary

• When using the keyword Add New Sheet the user cannot perform any functions before or after this keyword on the currently open workbook. The changes that other keywords make will not be saved when the keyword Add New Sheet is used. They must add a sheet then save the workbook before using any other keyword. If they want to use any other keywords on the workbbok they must open the workbook again to do so.
• We cannot use xlsx files as this has not been implemented in the xlrd library. Further information can be found here and discussed here. To get round this issue, the user can save the excel files with the xls extension, this is a Microsoft Excel 97-2003 Worksheet.

Getting Help

The user group for Robot Framework is the best place to get help. Include in the post:

• Contact the Python-Excel google group
• Full description of what you are trying to do and expected outcome
• Version number of robotframework-excellibrary and Robot Framework
• Traceback or other debug output containing error information