What are test suites in Robot Framework?

In Robot Framework, test suites are a way to group related test cases together. Think of them as containers or folders that organize your tests. They provide structure and make it easier to manage and run large sets of tests.

Here's a breakdown of what test suites are and why they are important:

What they are:

Hierarchical: Test suites can be organized hierarchically. You can have a top-level suite that contains other suites (sub-suites), and those sub-suites can contain even more sub-suites. This allows you to create a logical structure for your tests, reflecting the structure of your application or project.
Containers for test cases: Suites hold the individual test cases.
Execution units: You can run an entire suite, a sub-suite, or individual test cases within a suite.

Why they are important:

Organization: Suites help you organize your tests logically. For example, you might have suites for different modules of your application, different types of tests (e.g., functional, UI, API), or different environments (e.g., development, staging, production).
Manageability: When you have hundreds or thousands of test cases, it becomes essential to have a way to manage them effectively. Suites provide that management capability.
Parallel execution: Robot Framework supports parallel execution of test suites, which can significantly speed up your test runs.
Reporting: Robot Framework's reporting features provide summaries and details about test execution at the suite level, making it easier to analyze test results.
Filtering: You can easily filter and run tests based on suite names, making it convenient to run specific subsets of tests.

How to create and use them:

Directory structure: The most common way to define suites is through the directory structure of your test files. Each directory represents a test suite. Test cases within that directory belong to that suite.
Suite names: The name of the directory becomes the name of the test suite.
Sub-suites: If a directory contains other directories, those become sub-suites.
Running suites: You can specify the directory (suite) to run when you execute Robot Framework. Robot Framework will then discover and execute all the test cases within that directory and any sub-directories.

Example:

Let's say you have the following directory structure :

my_project/
??? tests/
?   ??? login/
?   ?   ??? login_tests.robot
?   ??? product_search/
?   ?   ??? search_tests.robot
?   ??? checkout/
?       ??? checkout_tests.robot

In this example:

tests is the top-level suite.
login, product_search, and checkout are sub-suites.
login_tests.robot, search_tests.robot, and checkout_tests.robot contain the individual test cases.

To run all the tests, you would run Robot Framework on the tests directory :

robot tests

This would execute all the test cases in all the suites. You could also run a specific sub-suite, like :

robot tests/login

This would only run the tests in the login suite.