API Testing

What is an API?

API stands for Application Programming Interface, which specifies how one component should interact with the other. It consists of a set of routines, protocols and tools for building the software applications.

What is an API Testing?

The API Testing is performed for the system, which has a collection of API that ought to be tested. During Testing, a test of following things is looked at.

• Exploring boundary conditions and ensuring that the test harness varies parameters of the API calls in ways that verify functionality and expose failures.

• Generating more value added parameter combinations to verify the calls with two or more parameters.

• Verifying the behaviour of the API which is considering the external environment conditions such as files, peripheral devices, and so forth.

• Verifying the Sequence of API calls and check if the API's produce useful results from successive calls.

Common Tests performed on API's

• Return Value based on input condition - The return value from the API's are checked based on the input condition.

• Verify if the API's does not return anything.

• Verify if the API triggers some other event or calls another API. The Events output should be tracked and verified.

• Verify if the API is updating any data structure.