Api Testing: What, Why, And How?

By Author: EduBridge India
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Before you launch your ‘super’ software into the new tech-savvy market, it is very important to explore and test its performance, security, reliability, and functionality. Without meeting these expectations, releasing software or an application for that matter, may not constitute meeting the standards of the market. To help test all such interfaces, a mechanism called API testing has been developed. Let us have an in-depth look into this type of software testing.

WHAT IS API TESTING?
Application program interface (API) testing involves testing an application program interface directly, including its functionality, dependability, performance, and security. The tests are run either as part of the integration testing process or directly on the API. An API is a piece of middleware code that allows two software applications to communicate with one another. The code also describes how an application asks the operating system (OS) or other apps for services. The three layers present in an application are; A data layer, a service layer (the API layer), and a presentation layer (the user interface (UI) layer are common ...
... levels of applications.

what-is-an-api
Types of API testing:

Runtime and error detection testing: These API tests are intended to assess the API’s real operation and often concentrate on monitoring, execution faults, resource leaks, or error detection.

Load testing: This sort of API test evaluates how well an API handles a high volume of requests in a short period.

Security testing: These tests evaluate how an API responds to and defends against cyberattacks.

Penetration Testing: Penetration tests involve users with limited API expertise attempting to attack the API, allowing testers to analyze the danger vector from the outside.

Validation testing: Validation tests are performed late in the testing process to evaluate the API’s functionality and performance.

Fuzz Testing: This form of API test makes a huge number of randomized requests to determine whether your API responds with errors, wrongly processes any of these inputs or crashes.

Functional testing: These API tests ensure that an API gives the correct response to a given request.

WHY IS API TESTING NECESSARY?
APIs may at times be stormed with unexpected search requests, and in such times, to ensure that the search results are up to the mark, it is very important to test the functionality of the API. Another major advantage of API testing is that it provides many other benefits over other kinds of testing such as UI testing and Unit testing. Let us understand the importance of UI testing by way of an illustration:

Suppose you are surfing for a resort through an online travel booking site. The site will most probably require you to fill in some basic information such as the check-in and check-out dates, the city you want to stay in, the number of rooms, and the number of guests. the function that is going on between you entering your preferences and receiving results in consonance with those preferences is what we call API. The site aggregates information from many different resorts. When you click “search,” the site communicates with the API of each hotel, which returns results for available rooms that suit your requirements.

All of this happens in seconds thanks to an API, which functions as a messenger between programs, databases, and devices. However, regardless of whether an API is free or not, it will never be accepted if it does not perform properly and effectively. APIs are checked before they are used to avoid this.