robotframework-style-guide

Robot Framework Style Guide

Table of Content

Generic Coding Rules

Spacing (Line Break, Line Spacing, Indentation, Spaces)

Horizontal Spacing (part 1, Guido)

• Type of Separators (\t space pipe?) No pipes!
• The recommended spacing between tokens is 4 spaces. While other spacing is allowable down to 2 spaces, 4 spaces is a good value for readability.
• Separators in line
  • Separators between Keywords and Arguments
  • Separators between Arguments
  • Separators in Statements (FOR, IF, WHILE)
  • Separators between Variables and Keyword
  • Space between Vars and = ? (and whether to use "=" at all)
  • Separators before Comments and after comment char
  • Alignment/Separators Line Continuation
• Indentation of Blocks
  • IF Blocks, TRY/CATCH, WHILE, FOR (END)
  • High Level Blocks = Required indention of Keywords within Test Cases
• Trailing Spaces?
  • #trailing-whitespace
• Spacing in SettingsHeaders
• Indentation to block (in some cases)
• Max. length of lines (does belong here?)

Vertical Spacing (Part 2, Kelby)

• Spacing between Section Header and first Content
• Spacing between Sections 2!
• Spacing between Keywords Definitions
• Spacing between Keyword Calls [01]
• Spacing between Test Cases/Tasks
  • Spacing between templated TestCases
• Empty Line at end?
• Spacing between Settings in Settings Section
• Using of empty lines in the middle of a KW (or TC, headers, ...)

Line Continuations

Variables

• Line continuation in
  • Scalar
  • Dicts
  • Lists

Arguments

• Number of Arguments before moving to new line 3 to 5
• Vertical listing

Chained Keywords

• How many until new line?

Naming

• ... of (local vs. global) variables, KWs, TCs, tags, files (including extensions .robot vs. .resource) -Tags -Suite / Clobal > capital case
• (Non-)allowed characters, naming conventions like snake case, camel case etc.
• Semantic rules, e.g.
  • Boolean variables starts with a verb: is_, does_, has_, ...
  • KW are in imperative mood
• Length of names

Documentation

• What should be documented (global variables, KWs, TCs, TSs...?)

Suite Level Rules

• Max. number of lines in a file (this is not only for suite files)
• Max. number of TCs in a file (except for when written using a template)

Vertical Orders

• Order of Sections
• Order in Settings Section

Test Level Rules

• Max. number of KW calls in a test

Resource Level Rules

• Max. number of KW calls in a KW

Vertical Orders

Variable Rules