All about API testing & Keploy

Arindam Majumder - Feb 12 - - Dev Community

Introduction

Nowadays, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) have become the backbone of modern applications. And to check the functionalities of the APIs, API Testing is very Important!

So, In this Article, we'll understand What is API, API Testing And How Keploy Helps in Writing Test Cases.

So Without Delaying Further! Let's START!

What is API?

The Full Form of API is an Application Programming Interface. In Simple words, an API helps two different software to communicate and exchange data with each other.

Didn't get it?

No Worries! Let's understand this with a Story!

API (Application Programming Interface)

Suppose We (the client) go to a restaurant, and we want to order some food.

So, we'll see the menu (the API Documentation ) and make our order to the Waiter (request to the API).

Now the Waiter (the API) will take our order to the Chef (the Server) and bring back our food (the server's response) when it's prepared.

And thus we can Enjoy our Food!

On the web, The API works just like the Waiter, It takes our request and brings back the information from the server as a response.

Some Popular APIs:

04 who is creating APIs

Here are some popular APIs:

  1. Social Media APIs: Twitter API, Facebook Graph API.

  2. Payment APIs: PayPal API, Stripe API.

  3. Mapping and Geolocation APIs: Google Maps API, Mapbox API.

  4. Cloud Storage and File Management APIs: Google Drive API, Dropbox API.

  5. Communication APIs: Twilio API, SendGrid API.

  6. Weather APIs: OpenWeatherMap API.

  7. E-commerce APIs: Amazon Product Advertising API, Shopify API.

  8. Music and Media APIs: Spotify API, YouTube API.

  9. Machine Learning and AI APIs: TensorFlow API, IBM Watson API.

  10. Blockchain APIs: Ethereum API, Bitcoin API.

These APIs offer a wide range of functionalities for different purposes, from accessing social media data to processing payments and more.

What is API Testing?

Now we know what is an API and How it Works! Let's understand API Testing!

API testing is a type of testing that focuses on verifying the functionality, performance, and security of the API.

In simple words, It ensures that it's working properly!

But have you ever thought that why do we even need testing? Let's see that

Why API Testing:

API testing is vital for ensuring that APIs function properly and meet requirements. Here are the main reasons API testing is important :

  • It helps to Identify errors early

  • Achieve better test coverage

  • Test faster

  • Easily shift left testing

  • Require less maintenance

  • Fix bugs faster

  • Reduce testing costs

In short, API testing helps you find and fix issues early, test faster, isolate bugs, and verify core functionality. This results in higher quality, more reliable applications that can be released more quickly.

Problem:

Till now We understand What is API Testing and Why we need it. However, Writing test cases is not an easy task!

And As The Project grows It becomes very hard for the developers to write test cases manually!

So What's the Solution ??

The Solution: Keploy

keploy logo

Don't Worry much, We developers always love to solve our problems and automate our bearing tasks!

So here is the solution to this!

Keploy is Keploy is an Open Source API testing platform to generate Test cases out of data calls along with data mocks.

In simple words, With Keploy we don't have to write manual test cases. It records API interactions and expected responses and generates test cases and data mocks to make our work easy and efficient.

Conclusion

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Thank you for Reading :)

Thank You

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