Notes on Rest Services
Rest API Response Codes
Here are some sample Response Codes which we will normally see while performing REST API testing over POSTMAN or over any REST API client.
#1) 100 Series These are temporary Responses
100 Continue
101 Switching Protocols
102 Processing
#2) 200 Series The client accepts the Request, being processed successfully at the server.
200 – OK
201 – Created
202 – Accepted
203 – Non-Authoritative Information
204 – No Content
205 – Reset Content
206 – Partial Content
207 – Multi-Status
208 – Already Reported
226 – IM Used
#3) 300 Series Most of the codes related to this series are for URL Redirection.
300 – Multiple Choices
301 – Moved Permanently
302 – Found
303 – Check Other
304 – Not Modified
305 – Use Proxy
306 – Switch Proxy
307 – Temporary Redirect
308 – Permanent Redirect
#4) 400 Series These are specific to client-side error.
400 – Bad Request
401 – Unauthorised
402 – Payment Required
403 – Forbidden
404 – Not Found
405 – Method Not Allowed
406 – Not Acceptable
407 – Proxy Authentication Required
408 – Request Timeout
409 – Conflict
410 – Gone
411 – Length Required
412 – Precondition Failed
413 – Payload Too Large
414 – URI Too Long
415 – Unsupported Media Type
416 – Range Not Satisfiable
417 – Expectation Failed
418 – I’m a teapot
421 – Misdirected Request
422 – Unprocessable Entity
423 – Locked
424 – Failed Dependency
426 – Upgrade Required
428 – Precondition Required
429 – Too Many Requests
431 – Request Header Fields Too Large
451 – Unavailable For Legal Reasons
#5) 500 Series These are specific to the server-side error.
500 – Internal Server Error
501 – Not Implemented
502 – Bad Gateway
503 – Service Unavailable
504 – Gateway Timeout
505 – HTTP Version Not Supported
506 – Variant Also Negotiates
507 – Insufficient Storage
508 – Loop Detected
510 – Not Extended
511 – Network Authentication Required
Types of Rest Requests
Best practices
Best Practices While Validating A REST API
#1) CRUD Operations
Consist of minimum 4 methods provided and should be working in the Web API.
GET, POST, PUT and DELETE.
#2) Error Handling
Possible hints for the API consumers about the error and why it has occurred. It also should provide granular level error messages.
#3) API Versioning
Use the letter ‘v’ in the URL to denote the API version. For example-
http://restapi.com/api/v3/passed/319
Additional parameter at the end of the URL
http://restapi.com/api/user/invaiiduser?v=6.0
#4) Filtering
Enabling the user to specify, select the desired data instead of providing them all at a time.
/contact/sam?name, age, designation, office
/contacts?limit=25&offset=20
#5) Security
Timestamp in each and every API Request and Response. Use of access_token to make sure that API is invoked by the trust parties.
#6) Analytics
Having Analytics in your REST API will give you a good insight of API under test especially when the number of records fetched is very high.
#7) Documentation
Proper documentation is to be provided so that API consumers can use it and consume the services effectively.
#8) URL Structure
URL structure should remain simple and a user should be able to read the domain name easily over it.
For Example, https://api.testdomain.com.
Operations to be performed over the Rest API should also be very easy to understand and perform.
For Example, for an Email client:
GET: read/inbox/messages – Retrieves the list of all message under inbox
GET: read/inbox/messages/10 – Reads 10th message in inbox
POST: create/inbox/folders – Create a new folder under inbox
DELETE: Delete/spam/messages – Delete all the messages under spam folder
PUT: folders/inbox/subfolder – Update the information relating to the subfolder under inbox.
Put Vs Post
Useful links:
What is the use of Accept and Content-Type Headers in HTTP Request? Accept headers tells web service what kind of response client is accepting, so if a web service is capable of sending response in XML and JSON format and client sends Accept header as application/xml then XML response will be sent. For Accept header application/json, server will send the JSON response
Content-Type header is used to tell server what is the format of data being sent in the request. If Content-Type header is application/xml then server will try to parse it as XML data. This header is useful in HTTP Post and Put requests.
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