Book Image

API Testing and Development with Postman

By : Dave Westerveld
1 (1)
Book Image

API Testing and Development with Postman

1 (1)
By: Dave Westerveld

Overview of this book

Postman enables the exploration and testing of web APIs, helping testers and developers figure out how an API works. With Postman, you can create effective test automation for any APIs. If you want to put your knowledge of APIs to work quickly, this practical guide to using Postman will help you get started. The book provides a hands-on approach to learning the implementation and associated methodologies that will have you up and running with Postman in no time. Complete with step-by-step explanations of essential concepts, practical examples, and self-assessment questions, this book begins by taking you through the principles of effective API testing. A combination of theory coupled with real-world examples will help you learn how to use Postman to create well-designed, documented, and tested APIs. You'll then be able to try some hands-on projects that will teach you how to add test automation to an already existing API with Postman, and guide you in using Postman to create a well-designed API from scratch. By the end of this book, you'll be able to use Postman to set up and run API tests for any API that you are working with.
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
1
Section 1: API Testing Theory and Terminology
6
Section 2: Using Postman When Working with an Existing API
13
Section 3: Using Postman to Develop an API

What are API specifications?

Some APIs follow strictly defined protocols. However, RESTful APIs follow an architectural style that was laid out by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation. This means that there are general principles laid out that they follow, but there is not a strict protocol that they must adhere to. This balance between structure and flexibility has been a powerful concept and has contributed to the widespread adoption of this kind of API architecture. There is no such thing as a perfect solution, however, and this is no different. One of the benefits of SOAP APIs is that the structure must be specified following strict programmatic rules. This means that the API definition must be written in a way that computers can easily understand. This makes it easy to create a lot of general-purpose automation for these kinds of APIs. If a computer can understand the layout of an API, you can automatically generate some kinds of documentation, tests, and even code from that...