A Beginner’s Guide to Using and Testing RESTful APIs
Imagine if every PhD dissertation resulted in something that changed the world?
Sadly, most end up with a copy on the shelf at the university library, maybe one in the author’s office, and little more. But one, about 16 years ago, led to the foundation of that thing we spend our lives on — the Web. Back in 2000, Roy Fielding presented his doctoral dissertation at University of California-Irvine on the representational state transfer.
Representational state transfer or “REST” is the software architectural style designed for distributed systems and, particularly, the World Wide Web.
REST is not a protocol or standard. REST architecture is simply following certain guidelines for how a well-designed Web app behaves, in a logical organization that involves a series of links — or state transitions — that then result in the next page —representing the next state of the application — for the user.
If you work on a team that’s responsible for developing APIS, or build applications that depend on third-party APIs to perform critical functions, you’re probably already well aware of the role RESTful services have had in reshaping the connected world.
But if you’re new to REST APIs, you may still have some questions about what you need to know when building and testing REST APIs.
The Beginner’s Guide to Using and Testing RESTful APIs
REST 101: The Beginner’s Guide to Using and Testing RESTful APIs is your very own REST wiki.
In this REST API tutorial you will learn what exactly are RESTful Web Services and what are its best (and worst) use cases, the difference between a REST API and a SOAP API, and how to test a REST API for not only usage, but use cases.
Since this is your very own REST wiki, we will be organizing it around what REST API influencers believe are the most important things for you, as a developer, to know in order for you to build beautiful RESTful Web APIs that will actually solve your API consumers’ needs.
We’ll also show how you can test a REST API with SoapUI NG Pro, the world’s most trusted API testing tool.