If your company writes API, then definitely you will need to test it. And to test manually can be tedious, so it requires API automation testing! This blog post will take you through API automation testing and how it is evolving in 2021. So follow along!
What Is API Testing, And How to Automate It?
API testing aims to ensure that programming interfaces are functional, reliable, perform well, and are secure. Instead of using standard user inputs (keyboard) and outputs, API Testing uses software to submit calls to the API, obtain production, and record the system’s response. API automation testing necessitates the use of an application that can be interacted with via an API. To test an API, you must:
- To drive the API, use the Testing Tool.
- To test the API, write your code.
API Automation Testing Is Evolving, But Why?
- The world is full of AI and hence bringing AI into API testing is also a significant development. API automation testing is the perfect strategy for getting the products faster into the market and reducing human errors to a greater extent. It ensures the launch of a quality product from the API perspective. With automation employed in API testing, it is possible to cover more test requirements and can launch a much-secured application in a shorter period. Few reasons why API automation testing is evolving are:
API level integration testing should be a required component of any automated testing plan. It is more of a tester’s cup of tea than a developer’s because it can extend beyond the part or application. The lack of a user interface can make it difficult to access and test the API. You can always choose to use various API tools available in the market worldwide.
Faster and more complete software testing means less time to market, shorter release cycles, more rapid feedback, and more remarkable adaptation to user needs, all of which have a direct impact on your product’s success.
API test automation simplifies the integration and regression testing in an Agile environment. It allows calling an API with third-party systems to check and validate every time a change is made to the application.
End-to-end tests require more time to load browsers and displays, but API tests are based on individual request-response interactions (for example, in JSON or XML format), which allows for faster execution and shorter feedback cycles. Furthermore, user interfaces vary regularly as a result of diverse user modification requests and adherence to complex front-end due to frameworks. API is more stable in terms of interfaces, resulting in fewer defects and requiring less maintenance.
API automation testing is beneficial to the product companies that rely on external services for storing data. It ensures that even if external services modify their format, the regular API tests detect it before the customers even start complaining.
The capacity to confidently evolve the application in response to business needs is dependent on the ability to recognize when such changes inadvertently modify or break current functionality. Detecting such issues before they reach the production stage necessitates the continual execution of a comprehensive test suite. It is, however, exceedingly impractical to manually conduct a broad set of test scenarios each time an application is updated to evaluate the results. Such testing is simple with automation.
With API testing being automated, the number of test cycles is increased, a variety of tests can be performed in a limited time, products can be launched to the market fast, and manual effort almost vanishes. Observing all these advantages of API automation testing, businesses are looking to adopt API test automation to make their product a quality one and a successful one indeed.