Major Changes
- **Improved Robot Framework 7.1 Compatibility**
- Enhanced SharedLibrary compatibility
- Support for `--legacyoutput` option for compatibility with older tools
- **PabotLib Now Enabled by Default**: PabotLib functionality is now automatically enabled and doesn't require explicit activation
- Old `--pabotlib` argument is kept for backwards compatibility but does nothing
- New `--no-pabotlib` argument added to disable PabotLib when needed
- **Flexible Argument Positioning**: Pabot options no longer need to be placed before Robot Framework options
- **Enhanced Error Handling and Test Execution**:
- Ordering file errors are now properly categorized as test data problems rather than Pabot failures
- Improved preservation of test execution order when sharding
- Fixed incorrect process number allocation in dryrun mode
- Better support for non-English robot case files with `--language` option (e.g., `pabot --language zh-CN localized.robot`)
- **Installation and Packaging**:
- Added wheel packages for easier installation
Breaking Changes
- PabotLib being enabled by default might affect existing workflows that assumed it was disabled
- Modified test sharding behavior for better order preservation
Contributors
- Mikko Korpela
- David Hotham (Wheel publishing)
- WendyInXian (Dryrun process allocation fix)
- Patrik William (Shards ordering)
- Yinling He (Non-English file support)
Known Issues
- Some timing-related issues have been reported (593, 596) but appear to be related to Robot Framework core
Compatibility
- Tested against Robot Framework versions 4.1.3, 5.0.1, 6.0.2, 6.1.1, 7.0.1 and 7.1.1.
- Tested against Python versions 3.8, 3.10 and 3.12