Summary:

In today’s world, industries are increasingly focusing on the development of web applications to enhance online services. With the rise in popularity of web applications, REST APIs have emerged as a crucial component for managing and executing the business logic of these applications. APIs play a pivotal role in ensuring the proper functioning and integrity of applications. Therefore, API testing has become essential to identify and rectify potential issues or defects that could otherwise lead to data discrepancies or calculation errors, ultimately impacting business operations.

Postman stands out as one of the most effective tools for API testing. It allows users to test API functionalities manually and automatically, leveraging its companion tool, Newman. Postman offers essential capabilities for creating requests and testing them in accordance with API specifications. Users can employ various HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. Additionally, Postman provides robust features for managing dynamic parameters, headers, authentications, payloads, and validating responses. It facilitates setting up environment variables, creating mock servers, and generating test automation scripts using JavaScript. The tool also includes comprehensive documentation to aid users in every step of API testing and development.

Key Features:

• Testing various REST API functions requires the ability to submit requests using various HTTP methods, such as GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc. Postman makes this possible.
• Postman supports managing variables, including global and environment variables for different stages like test, stage, and production.
• Postman has a user-friendly interface for creating, managing, and executing API requests, whether individually or as collections.
• Ability to handle the dynamic parameters and values in request.
• Postman provides the strong support for various authentication mechanism such as OAuth 1.0, OAuth 2.0, Bearer Token, API Key, and Basic Auth.
• Postman allows easy management and customization of headers and cookies as per the requirement.
• Postman supports different payload formats, including JSON, XML, form-data, and binary data.
• Postman supports validating API responses, including status code checks, schema validation, data assertion, etc.,
• Postman support API test automation with proper management of pre-requisite scripts and test scripts with the help of postman code snippets and customized java Scripts code validations.
• Postman allows to run the automated scripts via CI/CD pipeline with the help of third-party Newman tool and provides the understandable HTML dashboard report.
• Teams can coordinate and work on projects more efficiently after having access to features like version control and shared workspaces.
• Postman provides detailed documentation to help users understand the tool.

Structure:

The structure of the Postman collection test automation framework –

Postman collection test automation framework

Environment setup –

Environment setup

Implement test scripts in Postman –

Implement test scripts in Postman

Individual request API response –

Individual request API response

Individual request API response

Execute All Request using Collection with 1 iteration-

Request using Collection with 1 iteration

Request using Collection with 1 iteration

Request using Collection with 1 iteration

Request using Collection with 1 iteration

Execute All Request using Collection with 2 iteration-

Request using Collection with 2 iteration

Request using Collection with 2 iteration

Request using Collection with 2 iteration

Usage:

• Postman collections can be easily integrated with CI/CD tool like Jenkins.
• Postman easily provides combined access to testing and development team.
• Automated API testing with Postman reduces the time required for testing.
• We can create Tests to verify a postman request.
• Provides custom scripts for Pre-Request and Test Scripts using JavaScript to automate complex workflows and validations.
• Provides response time, response status code, schema validations using JavaScript code.

Conclusion:

Postman is an essential tool for efficient and comprehensive API testing. Its user-friendly interface, robust features, and automation capabilities streamline the testing process, ensuring reliable and bug-free APIs. By supporting various HTTP methods, dynamic parameters, and authentication mechanisms, Postman enhances both manual and automated testing, making it a valuable asset for developers and testers.

Ref Link:

https://www.postman.com/downloads/

https://learning.postman.com/docs/introduction/overview/

https://learning.postman.com/docs/publishing-your-api/documenting-your-api/