New gen_robot_utils.py file with my_import_resource function.
This function will preserve existing global values when importing
resource.
Change-Id: Ia79dc2762b3764e9c3d8af321e04da78cfb666d7
Signed-off-by: Michael Walsh <micwalsh@us.ibm.com>
diff --git a/lib/gen_robot_utils.py b/lib/gen_robot_utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8f275b0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/lib/gen_robot_utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,78 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env python
+
+r"""
+This module contains utility and wrapper functions useful to robot python
+programs.
+"""
+
+import re
+from robot.libraries.BuiltIn import BuiltIn
+
+
+###############################################################################
+def my_import_resource(path):
+
+ r"""
+ Import the resource file specified in path.
+
+ Description of arguments:
+ path The path to your resource file.
+
+ This function is a wrapper for BuiltIn().import_resource() and provides
+ the following benefits:
+ - When you invoke a robot program from a command line, you may specify
+ program parameters as follows:
+
+ -v --variable name:values
+
+ For example:
+
+ robot -v parm_x:1 file_x.robot
+
+ When you do "Resource utils_x.robot" in a .robot program, it processes
+ "utils_x.robot" BEFORE your command line parms are processed, as one
+ might expect. On the other hand, if one of your python library files
+ were to run BuiltIn().import_resource("utils_x.robot"), it will process
+ "utils_x.robot" AFTER your program parms are processed. Let's suppose
+ that utils_x.robot contains the following:
+
+ *** Variables ***
+ ${parm_x} ${0}
+
+ If your program is invoked like this:
+
+ robot -v parm_x:3 file_x.robot
+
+ And if your program has a python library file that invokes
+ BuiltIn().import_resource("utils_x.robot"), then parm_x will get set to
+ ${0}. In other words, instead of utils_x.robot serving to set a default
+ value for parm_x, it actually causes the user's specification of
+ "-v parm_x:3" to be overwritten.
+
+ This function will remedy that problem by keeping your -v parms intact.
+
+ - The problems with -v parms mentioned above are also found with variables
+ from your file_x.robot "** Variables **" section. Namely, they may get
+ overwritten when import_resource() is used. This function will likewise
+ remedy that problem.
+
+ """
+
+ # Retrieve the values of all current variables into a dictionary.
+ pre_var_dict = BuiltIn().get_variables()
+ # Do the import.
+ BuiltIn().import_resource(path)
+ # Once again, retrieve the values of all current variables into a
+ # dictionary.
+ post_var_dict = BuiltIn().get_variables()
+
+ # If any variable values were changed due to the prior import, set them
+ # back to their original values.
+ for key, value in post_var_dict.iteritems():
+ if key in pre_var_dict:
+ if value != pre_var_dict[key]:
+ global_var_name = re.sub("[@&]", "$", key)
+ BuiltIn().set_global_variable(global_var_name,
+ pre_var_dict[key])
+
+###############################################################################