Status: Accepted
Owner: ----
Labels: Type-Documentation Priority-Medium Target-0.10
New issue 23 by pekka.klarck: Enhance documentation of keywords that can
execute commands
http://code.google.com/p/robotframework-sshlibrary/issues/detail?id=23
I needed to explain how different keywords that execute commands work in a
mail. This stuff could be added to the keyword documentation:
I have many testcases where I execute UNIX commands via
SSHLibrary. In some
of them I need to evaluate the output of a command. SSHLibrary
provides several
keywords / keyword combinations which could be used for that:
- Write | <UNIX command>
${output}= | Read
This reads everything currently available in the output buffer. Good if
you know everything has been written, not so good if the command is
still writing something.
- Write | <UNIX command>
${output}= | Read Until Prompt
This reads everything until the next prompt (that must have been set
earlier) appears in the output buffer. If there's no prompt initially,
this will wait for it to appear until the configured timeout. Good when
you have started a command when the output buffer was empty and are
waiting for the to finish. Bad if there are already prompts in the
output buffer or the command produces multiple buffers.
- Write Bare | <UNIX command> \n
${output}= | Read
- Write Bare | <UNIX command> \n
${output}= | Read Until Prompt
These are identical to the previous commands. You are just adding the
newline character yourself -- `Write` adds that automatically but `Write
Bare` doesn't.
- Start Command | <UNIX command>
${output}= | Read Command Output
I didn't even know that there are a keywords like these in SSHLibrary.
Apparently they start the command on background and you can then read it
later.
- ${output}= | Execute Command | <UNIX command>
This one executes the command in a separate shell. Easiest to use but
not possible when you need to run several shell commands.
