Robotframework: More verbose console output (e.g. show when keywords start)

[spooning]

_Originally submitted to Google Code by quim.fragas on 22 Mar 2013_

I think this is particularly useful for long SuiteSetup and TestSetup,
to have feedback that something is running.

F.i.

===============================================
Test suite X                                           
===============================================

Call to                        SuiteSetup                       
-----------------------------------------

Test 1                           | PASS |
-----------------------------------------
Test 2                           | PASS |
-----------------------------------------

Eventually, you can also implement for SuiteTeardown and TestTeardown

Call to                     SuiteTeardown 
-----------------------------------------

I know this will be visible in the log, but if we are following online the test progress console in Jenkins, I believe it can help.

[spooning]

_Originally submitted to Google Code by @pekkaklarck on 3 Apr 2013_

I agree in general that having a more verbose output would sometimes be useful. This needs to be configurable with a command line option, though. In addition to showing when suite setup/teardown starts, we could also show when keywords inside test cases start.

Although I agree that this would be a good feature, the core development team doesn't have resources to implement this in the near future. If you find this very important, you can look at implementing this yourself or sponsoring the development somehow.

See also #317 about less verbose output and #318 about showing how many tests have passed/failed on console all the time.

[spooning]

_Originally submitted to Google Code by nikbox0 on 30 Oct 2013_

Another workaround could be #1534, although it requires to add some logging in setup keywords of the test/suite.

[pekkaklarck]

There's PR #2525 implementing this. Let's see could it be merged in RF 3.0.3 or latest in 3.1.

[pekkaklarck]

RF 3.0.3 has been delayed a lot. Now we want it out ASAP and decided to only include bug fixes in it. I'll thus descope this enhancement to RF 3.1 which we plant to start developing right after RF 3.0.3 is out.

[rajeshtaneja]

Is there any update on this ?

[pekkaklarck]

I tested PR #2525 and think there are several things that should be changed. For details see my comment to the PR itself.

As I commented the PR, the next step would be agreeing on the design. Most importantly on how the output should look like and also on how to possibly configure verbosity levels. We want to get RF 3.1 out in November so there's not much time to get the design and then implementation done. RF 3.2 initially targeted for H1/2019 might thus be a more realistic goal, but even that requires someone to spend time thinking about the design a bit more.

[pekkaklarck]

Unfortunately no time for this in RF 3.1. I consider enhancing the console output quite high priority, but would really like to get help from others designing it.