API is an acronym for Application Programming Interface.
It enables communication and data exchange between two separate software systems. A software system implementing an API contains functions/subroutines which can be executed by another software system.
API Testing is entirely different from GUI Testing and mainly concentrates on the business logic layer of the software architecture. This testing won’t concentrate on the look and feel of an application.
Instead of using standard user inputs(keyboard) and outputs, in API Testing, you use software to send calls to the API, get output, and note down the system’s response.
API Testing requires an application to interact with API. In order to test an API, you will need to
An output of API could be:
Test cases of API testing are based on:
Following points helps the user to do API Testing approach:
API testing should cover at least following testing methods apart from usual SDLC process:
Since API and Unit Testing both target source code, tools/frameworks can be used for their automation.
Check out top API Testing Tools List
Challenges of API testing includes:
API consists of a set of classes/functions/procedures which represent the business logic layer. If the API is not tested properly, it may cause problems not only in the API application but also in the calling application. It is an indispensable test in software engineering.
