RED can't run tests without installed Interpreter / Runtime environment

[Hi-Fi]

In #70 there was possibility introduced to use custom runner script to execute Robot tests.

It works fine, but only if running computer already has installation of some of the interpreters (runtime environment configured). If there's no interpreter defined, tests can't be started as RED complains that

There is no active runtime environment for project 

Would there be possibility to ignore the need of interpreter? If not generally at least for this script runner?

This relates to #20, but I think this needs rethought while script execution was introduced.

[michalanglart]

Hi,

this is valid point - I think adding scripts launching changes situation a little and we may allow to run tests through scripts even if there is no interpreter defined.

However some kind of a warning would probably stay, because without having interpreter there would not much more than syntax coloring possible (+ scripted launching). Libdocs will not be generated, so there will be no keywords assistance (unless library specification file will be added manually in red.xml) and so on.

We're also thinking about giving possibility to define interpreter by specifying .jar file. This could be useful for maven/gradle scripts, because what they does behind the scene is downloading jython+RF in a single jar file and using it as an interpreter via java. More RED features would work if it would be possible for RED to also use this jar file as an interpreter.

[Hi-Fi]

Yes, jar-file interpreter would be very helpful solution. Even it requires some manual work (to point file location), it's much easier than install Python and things.

[KrzysztofJozefowicz]

released in 0.7.8

[nathanwonnacott]

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but I can't find anywhere in the documentation that explains how to use a .jar file as the interpreter. When I try to select it via the Preferences->Robot Framework->Installed Frameworks, it won't let me select the .jar file. If I select the folder that contains the jar file, it shows up in red, indicating that it isn't a valid environment.

[michalanglart]

Hi, it is not possible. This issue was about an error which was shown to user once there was no interpreter at all and tests were about to start. At first it seems fine but it is possible to run tests through other scripts which may for example start them remotely.

There is an open issue for that: #119 however I'm not sure if we're going to implement it and there are numerous reasons for that:

• jython is used by minority of RF users
• jython is supported by RF due to compability reasons but I've seen they would be keen to drop it
• due to that I've seen RF community advising users to move to python
• jython releases are rare (only 2 releases after 2.7.0 was released in 2015); it took them quite some time to support Java11
• it seems there is no active development of Jython 3 while Python 2 is officially dead; this means that sooner or later RF would also drop support for 2.x line