API documentation in Postman: Purpose and Benefits

Postman is an API(utility programming interface) development device that enables to construct, take a look at and alter APIs. It could make numerous varieties of HTTP requests(GET, POST, PUT, PATCH), store environments for later use, and convert the API to code for various languages(like JavaScript, and Python).

Purpose

1. Clarity and Understanding: API documentation in Postman serves as a complete guide for builders, providing clear insights into the API’s functionalities, endpoints, and anticipated conduct. It aids in knowledge the motive and usage of each API endpoint, making it easier for builders to combine and devour the API.

2. Onboarding and Adoption: Documentation enables the onboarding manner for new builders via presenting a established overview of the API’s abilties. It accelerates the adoption of the API within improvement groups, decreasing the mastering curve and enabling faster integration into packages.

3. Testing and Validation: Postman’s API documentation lets in developers to execute sample requests directly from the documentation. This characteristic helps real-time trying out and validation, allowing developers to verify that their requests are successfully formatted and that the API responds as anticipated.

4. Example Usage and Code Snippets: Documentation in Postman includes realistic examples and code snippets for making API requests. Developers can quickly draw close how to structure requests in extraordinary programming languages, fostering efficient and correct implementation.

5. Consistency in Usage: By supplying standardized documentation, Postman ensures that developers throughout different groups use the API continually. Consistent utilization reduces the probability of mistakes and improves the general reliability of packages counting on the API.

6. Troubleshooting and Debugging: Detailed documentation assists builders in troubleshooting and debugging their API requests. Developers can refer to error codes, reaction formats, and troubleshooting tips, streamlining the procedure of identifying and resolving issues.

7. Versioning and Changelog Information: API documentation in Postman typically includes versioning details and changelogs. This statistics is vital for developers to live knowledgeable about updates, deprecated features, and any changes that would effect their current implementations.

Benefits

1. Enhanced Developer Experience: Well-structured documentation in Postman contributes to a wonderful developer experience in, making it easy for builders to engage with and integrate the API.

2. Time and Resource Savings: Developers can quick find the information they want, lowering the time spent looking for API details and minimizing development delays.

3. Reduced Support and Maintenance Overhead: Clear documentation facilitates mitigate the want for sizeable support by way of presenting builders with the essential records to troubleshoot and resolve troubles independently.

4. Facilitates Collaboration: Postman documentation enables collaboration among group individuals by using offering a centralized and reachable resource for information and working with the API.

5. Adherence to Best Practices: Documentation reinforces adherence to API best practices by way of outlining conventions, standards, and recommendations for using the API correctly.

6. Supports Third-Party Integration: External builders or 3rd-party partners can seamlessly integrate with the API the usage of the supplied documentation, fostering external collaboration and environment boom.

7. Comprehensive Test Coverage: Documentation assists in developing complete take a look at suites in Postman, making sure thorough trying out of API endpoints and reducing the chance of undetected issues in manufacturing.

Example

In this example, we will learn to use post-request scripts from already available API documentation snippets in tests in Postman. Since the test snippets are available as documentation, we can directly use them to create test cases which not only saves time , but also help us to perform the testing with ease.

Steps

Step 1: Open the POSTMAN app and click on the `+` icon to create a new collection. Name the collection ‘GFG’.

Step 2: Click on Tests. Now in the right side pane, we can multiple snippets arrived. We can use any of the available snippet/test or create our own test based on our requirement. Code is written in JavaScript.

We will write 2 Tests in JavaScript from the already available snippets (API Documentation) from the right-hand side pane.

First Test: This will check whether the response time is less then 200ms

pm.test("Response time is less than 200ms", function () {
    pm.expect(pm.response.responseTime).to.be.below(200);
});

Second Test: This will check whether status code is 200

pm.test("Status code is 200", function () {
    pm.response.to.have.status(200);
});

Step 3: Click on Save

Step 4: When you hover, on the name of your collection, 3 dots will appear. Click on those 3 dots, and then click on “Add new request”.

Step 5: Now You can simply paste the API in the space provided and select the API type you are requesting from the dropdown like GET,POST, PUT, DELETE etc. Output will be shown in the body with the status code.

API Used:

https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1

Step 6: You can see the Test-execution scripts results in tab Test Results; as shown below

Output: