Inject library instance to keyword class instances

[MarkusBernhardt]

IMHO the AnnotationLibrary should inject its instance to the created keyword class instances. At the moment we have to use an ugly static member variable for that:

public class Selenium2Library extends
        org.robotframework.javalib.library.AnnotationLibrary {

    /**
     * The last created instance of this library. Since the scape of this 
     * library is GLOBAL and RobotFramework executes all tests single
     * threaded, this is ok. 
     */
    protected static Selenium2Library instance;

    public Selenium2Library() {
        super(keywordPatterns);
        instance = this;
    }
}

Any thoughts about that?

Thumbs up for your great work,
Markus

[jussimalinen]

Okay, I can see the rationale for this.

How should this work? Should the annotation library look for a constructor that takes AnnotationLibrary or something (what?) as argument? Or maybe a special function, that if present in the class, gets called with annotationlibrary as argument...

[MarkusBernhardt]

Hi Jussi,

I would suggest using Constructor Injection instead of Setter Injection, because the AnnotationLibrary instance object is mandatory for keyword classes that are implementing that constructor.

Should the AnnotationLibrary simply inject "this" to the Keyword object? That would not for work libraries, such as the SwingLibrary, which are not inherited from AnnotationLibrary, but use a AnnotationLibrary instance variable. (I know SwingLibrary is additionally inherited from AnnotationLibrary, but I do not know why and it sure would not work that way).

I would prefer letting the user of the AnnotationLibrary decide what to do.

I have hacked a working solution together. After making it a little bit more presentable I will put it into a pull request.

Cheers,
Markus

[ombre42]

Having a reference to the AnnotationLibrary instance is nice, but it does not solve the problem of keyword class instances finding each other or the library class finding keyword class instances.
In addition to having a way to find the library class from the keyword classes, it would be nice to have annotation-based field injection of @RobotKeywords class instances into both the library class and into @RobotKeywords classes.

@RobotKeywords
public class FooKeywords {
    // stateful methods and/or fields
}

@RobotKeywords
public class BarKeywords {
    @RobotKeywordsInstance
    private FooKeywords fooKeywords;
...
}
public class MyLibrary extends AnnotationLibrary {
    @RobotKeywordsInstance
    private BarKeywords barKeywords;
}

RobotKeywordsInstance is not a good name but I cannot think of a good one.

Alternatively, an instance method in AnnotationLibrary like:

    public Object getRobotKeywordsInstance(Class clazz)

Would provide the same functionality as the dependency injection.

[MarkusBernhardt]

What a great idea!

I have now thrown away my implementation and switched to an annotation based solution. I have checked in a first version for your feedback. The new Annotation is called: @Autowired

At the moment it can only be used inside keywords to inject other keyword instances. Injecting the library instance at keywords and keyword instances is missing.

What do you think?

[MarkusBernhardt]

I saw there are lots of differences because of indentation. What settings are you using in your editor?

[MarkusBernhardt]

Autowire library instance to keywords implemented

[MarkusBernhardt]

Autowire keyword instances to library implemented

[jussimalinen]

Cool! The idea looks good. I havent had a chance yet to go through all the changes. There is a lot of noise on the diffs because of indentation changes. Could you please use the same indentation as the project uses, what ever it is for this project? (It seems to be spaces.)

It would make it much easier to see what the actual changes are.

[MarkusBernhardt]

On the way,
on the way.
Just have to add an unit test.

Am 20.09.2013 um 11:50 schrieb Jussi Malinen notifications@github.com:

Cool! The idea looks good. I havent had a chance yet to go through all the changes. There is a lot of noise on the diffs because of indentation changes. Could you please use the same indentation as the project uses, what ever it is for this project? (It seems to be spaces.)

It would make it much easier to see what the actual changes are.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[MarkusBernhardt]

Hi Jussi,
I have now made a new pull request. Indentation is almost as it was before. Not 100%, but I hope close enough. I have moved the implementation into AnnotationLibrary, as Kevin suggested. Again lot less changes.

What I haven't found is the correct place to insert a unit test now. Could you please give me some hint?
Cheers,
Markus

[jussimalinen]

Nice :) With a quick look, looks good. The unit test could be anywhere in org.robotframework.javalib.library, you could make perhaps a new test class file? Does not matter too much really where the tests are, most important is just to have some tests for the basic use cases (including having several RobotKeywords instances on the same annotation library).

I will now leave for the weekend to a diving trip and wont have computer with me, but next week I should have time to comment and help with this.

Have a nice weekend!

[MarkusBernhardt]

Hi Jussi,

do you have any idea, when you will make a new release containing that annotation? I would like to push out a new version of the Selenium2Library asap.

Cheers,
Markus