Any good automation code needs guidelines or coding standards to be followed to be readable, presentable and at the same time ensure it is executable. Coding standard brings in the good rules being followed across projects into the project and hence adds value to the project. It also decreases the maintenance cost, as it is well documented and readable.
General Guidelines
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Use Option Explicit.
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Use an ampersand (&) for concatenating
strings instead of ‘+’.
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Set the
objects to nothing for cleaning the memory.
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Declare only one variable in a line.
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The code should be properly indented.
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Framework code should be designed and developed
with minimal possible loops and conditions for reduced complexity and enhanced
maintainability.
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Modular code for increased re-usability and reduced redundancy.
·
Code should be well indented with tabs. (Tab
width should be 4).
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Values passed and returned to the functions
should use simple variables.
·
Reduce the use of global variables within the
function. The scope of the variable should be decided based on the standards.
Commenting standards
Comments help to make the code more maintainable. Comments
should be used extensively to explain the logic behind most statements. One
space should be used between the two slashes. For extensive
explanations, an indented section with a meaningful name should be used. Comments for each line are not required. Instead, use comments for groups
of closely related lines or whenever the code is confusing or may be difficult
to understand. Comments on blocks of
code are preferable and should express insights and explanations of the code
that may not be obvious by looking at the code.
Code comments
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Comments need to be included for all complex
pieces of code
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Comments inside a code should follow the same
indentation as the code
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If the code block inside braces is long, the
ending brace should carry comments indicating closure of which loop
·
Significant lines in the code should be provided
with inline comments to better explain
the line of code's purpose and make it easier for subsequent developers to understand the code
faster and more thoroughly
Indentation
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Indentation should be used to clearly
define and allow easy access to different sections of the scripts, loops,
conditional statements and Functions/Sub Routines, etc.
·
One Tab (4 spaces) spacing should be maintained
in Loops.
·
Comments inside a code should follow the same
indentation as the code
Hard coding
Hard coding has to be avoided at all possible scenarios.
Particularly hard-coded paths and machine names should be avoided in test
scripts. This makes them very difficult to move from one machine or environment
to another. Instead all those will be kept into excel file or environment
variables and can be used in the scripts as variable. This would be very
helpful when we have many environments where the script has to be run.
Suppress user messages
While coding we have a tendency to use message boxes and
input boxes for the purpose of debugging. We should ensure that unnecessary
user messages should be suppressed. – Delete or comment out all debug user
messages, trial code routines. This will ease the batch runs for scripts and
ensure proper execution of script.