Learn API Testing : Norms, Practices, and Guidelines for Building Effective Test Automation

Explore software web application architecture, API testing, coding practices, and the standards for better API test automation development and management. This book focuses on aspiring software testing engineers currently working in API testing, and those starting their journey in the field of software testing. You’ll begin with an introduction to API testing and software web applications involving APIs. The book then moves on to the authentication standards used in the software industry, and the tools, the frameworks, and the libraries used in API testing. As the book progresses, you’ll learn about the test pyramid, how to test an API, what makes a good test script, and various coding guidelines. Finally, you get to write your own API test script. Learn API Testing is your pathway to understanding a typical software web application, its requests and responses, and the properties of a good test script. What You’ll learn Study web application, its architecture, authentication, request and response Examine practices, standards, and guidelines for effective test automation Work with different tools like RestAssured, Curl, and Postman Understand API testing paradigm (internal/external APIs, CDCT) Review a case study on the industrial software API testing process Organize a test framework Who This Book Is For API testing aspirants, developers/architects, project managers, and non-technical team members who may want to understand how APIs are being tested. Table of Contents About the Author About the Technical Reviewers Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1: Introduction to API Testing What Is API Testing? Need Types of API Testing Advantages Summary Chapter 2: Web Application Architecture Web Applications Defined Monolithic vs. Microservices Architecture Designing Test Strategies RESTful Architecture HTTP Headers Requests Request Methods Resource Addresses Request Headers Request Body Response Status Line Response Header Response Body Response Codes Summary Chapter 3: Authentication HTTP Authentication Basic Authentication Session-Based Authentication Token/JWT-Based Authentication OAuth2-Based Authentication Authorization RBAC ABAC Authentication and Authorization Services Summary Chapter 4: Tools, Frameworks, and Libraries API Testing Tools cURL Authentication POST GET PUT DELETE Postman Workspace Globals/Environments Collection Authentication Parameters Assertions Requests HTTP Methods Authentication Variables Console POST GET PUT DELETE RestAssured Frameworks/Libraries TestNG Log4j Jackson-Databind HashMap Assertj Java Spring Summary Chapter 5: Test Pyramid Black Box Testing Grey Box Testing White Box Testing Test Pyramid Summary Chapter 6: Testing the API Workflows/Use Cases/Test Script Schema Validation Test Coverage Header Testing Request Header Correct Header Missing Header Incorrect Header Unsupported Type Response Header Supported Type Response Codes Request Body Format Unsupported Special Characters Very Long Strings Invalid Method Invalid Value Incorrect Data Type Empty Data/Object Required Fields Null Redundant Fields DELETE Already Deleted Entity Duplicate Check Response Body Actual Data vs. Expected Data Limit/Size/Pagination/Sorting API Version Testing Internal vs. External APIs Consumer-Driven Contract Testing Importance of Negative Testing Summary Chapter 7: A Good Test Script Components of a Test Script setup() test() teardown() Guidelines Single-Attempt Test Document Test Objective Keep It Small Use assertj for Assertions Use log4j Order of Tests No Interventions Between Test Steps Avoid Hard Sleeps Always Use Assertions Do Not Overtest Do Not Import a Test into Another Test Test Boundaries API Test Coverage Provide Short Commands Do not try{} catch{} Summary Chapter 8: Coding Guidelines Coding Best Practices Class Naming Conventions Method Naming Conventions Variable Naming Conventions Constant Naming Conventions Provide User Actions Simplicity Indentation Test Assertions Test Class Naming Conventions Test Method Naming Conventions Test Package Naming Conventions Documentation Summary Chapter 9: Organize a Test Framework Framework Requirements Request Response Exception Configuration User Authentication Processor Model Test Framework Test Assertions Logger Util Test Execution Debug Config Test Driver Setting Up a Maven Project Dependencies and Plugins RestAssured Log4j TestNG Spring Framework Assertj Jackson-Databind Maven Compiler Plugin Surefire Plugin Java Code Formatting Plugin Request Response Exceptions Configuration Properties File Spring Application Configuration Application Context Application Config Complete URL For the Test Script Test Data JSON File Payload for POST and PUT HTTP Methods User Authentication Processor Model Test Framework Logger Util Test Execution Debug Config Test Driver Summary Chapter 10: First Test Script Developing Your First Test Base Test Authentication Request Processor Response Processor First Test Test Suite TestNG XML Executing a Test Execute a Test Suite Execute an Individual Test Execution Results TestNG Report Logging log().all() Response Time Debug Summary Chapter 11: API Documentation Need Swagger Summary Chapter 12: Case Study: Shopping Cart APIs Feature List QA Responsibility Matrix Sprint # Goal Setting Sprint One Sprint Guidelines Definition of Done Story Pointing Backlog Grooming Story Grooming QA Tasks Documentation Test Environment Setting Up the Application QA Tools Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment Targeted Features API Endpoints Unit Testing Test Plan Development Test Data Preparation Manual Test Scripts Postman Test Automation Test Suite Parallel Test Execution Test Execution Front-End Team Sprint Nth Sprint Demo Feedback Testing Hardening Sprint Release Testing Summary Appendix A: Workstation Setup Java MacOS Ubuntu Linux Windows Maven MacOS Ubuntu Linux Windows Maven Project cURL MacOS Ubuntu Linux Windows Postman IDE Tomcat MacOS/Ubuntu/Linux Windows Appendix B: Contact Management Application Swagger Appendix C: Shopping Cart Application Swagger Index