robotframework test extjs app

Question

I am testing an extjs web app by using robotframework and selenium2library, but I can not locate some HTML elements because they are assigned a dynamic id.

For example: selenium2library could not locate a button which html code like this:

<button type="button" id="ext-gen56" class=" x-btn-text silk-add">create vm</button>

I have tried to use detail XPath and css expression, but they do not work. How to deal with this problem? Any help would be appreciated.

What the tools I used are robotframework and selenium2library which are used for automatic web app testing.

Parts of my test script:

 // filename is A.txt
 //this is  a resource file including keywords which are used by testcase file 
*** Keywords *** 
open vmmanager page
    [Timeout]
    click element    xpath=//table[3]/tbody/tr[2]/td[2]/em/button

create vm
    [Arguments]    ${vm_name}    ${input_description}
    click element    xpath=//table[3]/tbody/tr[2]/td[2]/em/button
    click element    xpath=//td[2]/table/tbody/tr[2]/td[2]/em/button
    click link    xpath=//tbody/tr/td[5]/div/a
    click link    xpath=//tbody/tr/td[7]/div/a
    input text    xpath=//div/div/input    ${vm_name}
    click image    xpath=//div/div/img
    click element    xpath=//div[22]/div/div
    click image    xpath=//div[3]/div/div/img
    click element    xpath=//div[19]/div/div

name is null
    alert should be present    ${expect}
    click button    xpath=//div[2]/div/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr/td/em/button
    click button    xpath=//td[5]/table/tbody/tr[2]/td[2]/em/button

contact engineer
    alert should be present    
    click button    ext-gen311

//filename is B.txt
//this is testcase file
*** Settings ***
Resource       fiel A.txt   

*** Test Cases ***
VC_VM_01
    open vmmanager page
    create vm    ${empty}    description
    name is null

VC_VM_03
    open vmmanager page
    create vm    valentine    day
    contact engineer

Answer 1

I would just find out how to set static ids. If you dont have access to the application code, I would ask that the developers would assign static ids for the components. - this would be IMHO the simplest solution.

Generated ids just usually mean that no one yet cares about them.

Answer 2

Without IDs, you could test using _near and _under from Sahi automation framework...I am using it, its Open Source..have patience to try different ways to identify the elements...its cool and good...

Answer 3

Most of the elements will be having text present on them.

xpath=//button[contains(text(), 'create vm')]

A generic approach will be

xpath=//*[contains(text(), 'create vm')]