5.3 Test data clean-up tool (tidy)
tidy is a tool for cleaning up and changing the format of Robot Framework test data files. It is built-in into Robot Framework and automatically included in the installation starting from version 2.7.
The output is written into the standard output stream by default, but an optional output file can be given starting from Robot Framework 2.7.5. Files can also be modified in-place using --inplace or --recursive options.
5.3.1 General usage
Synopsis
python -m robot.tidy [options] inputfile
python -m robot.tidy [options] inputfile [outputfile]
python -m robot.tidy --inplace [options] inputfile [more input files]
python -m robot.tidy --recursive [options] directory
Options
| -i, --inplace | Tidy given file(s) so that original file(s) are overwritten (or removed, if the format is changed). When this option is used, it is possible to give multiple input files. Examples: | |
|---|---|---|
| -r, --recursive | ||
| Process given directory recursively. Files in the directory are processed in place similarly as when --inplace option is used. | ||
| -f, --format <txt | html | tsv> |
| Output file format. If the output file is given explicitly, the default value is got from its extension. Otherwise the format is not changed. | ||
| -p, --use-pipes | ||
| Use a pipe character ( | ) as a cell separator in the txt format. | |
| -s, --spacecount <number> | ||
| The number of spaces between cells in the txt format. New in Robot Framework 2.7.3. | ||
| -l, --lineseparator <native | windows | unix> |
| Line separator to use in outputs. The default is 'native'. | ||
| -h, --help | Show this help. |
Alternative execution
Although tidy is used only with Python in the synopsis above, it works also with Jython and IronPython. In the synopsis tidy is executed as an installed module (python -m robot.tidy), but it can be run also as a script:
python path/robot/tidy.py [options] arguments
Executing as a script can be useful if you have done manual installation or otherwise just have the robot directory with the source code somewhere in your system.
Output encoding
All output files are written using UTF-8 encoding. Outputs written to the console use the current console encoding.
5.3.2 Cleaning up test data
Test case files created with HTML editors or written by hand can be normalized using tidy. tidy always writes consistent headers, consistent order for settings, and consistent amount of whitespace between cells and tables.
Examples:
python -m robot.tidy messed_up_tests.html cleaned_tests.html
python -m robot.tidy --inplace tests.txt
5.3.3 Changing test data format
Robot Framework supports test data in HTML, TSV and TXT formats and tidy makes changing between the formats trivial. Input format is always determined based on the extension of the input file. Output format can be set using the --format option, and the default value is got from the extension of the possible output file.
Examples:
python -m robot.tidy tests.html tests.txt
python -m robot.tidy --format txt --inplace tests.html
python -m robot.tidy --format tsv --recursive mytests