CODEWITHSUNDEEP
ruby-on-railsjsonweb-servicesunit-testingtesting
Eric the Red
Eric the Red

Reputation: 5454

How to test a JSON API?

I'm putting together a JSON API which may or may not be built with Rails. I'd like to be able to verify that the JSON API is behaving as expected by testing it from a test client that only communicates via HTTP.

For example, the test client will send a request to a given URL on the test server, and then verify that the response is a JSON string equal to what is expected by the specs. The response may also be an HTTP response code such as a 401.

I'm currently running tests with QUnit and jQuery.ajax. It works, but I'm wondering if there's a better option. Has anyone else done something like this?

Thanks!

Upvotes: 6

Views: 5328

Answers (10)

Chloe
Chloe

Reputation: 26264

I did it! This is how to do it with vanilla Rails. Notice the different accept mime type. You may parse the JSON if you wish. Comparing as strings was sufficient.

  test "vote comment up" do
    # @request.headers["Content-Type"] = "application/json"
    @request.headers["Accept"] = "application/javascript"
    post :up, {post_id: 1, id: 1}, {user_id: 5}
    assert_response :success
    assert_equal @response.body, '{"error":true,"errorPath":"/users/5/balance","userVotes":1,"totalVotes":0}'
  end

If you want to test during development, I use Advanced Rest Client Chrome Extension.

Upvotes: 0

Steven de Salas
Steven de Salas

Reputation: 21467

I've worked on a JS API for Rails and built a whole set of tests using QUnit and jQuery. I was quite happy with the end result, my aim was to test the API thoroughly and this combination of tools was everything I needed.

I've been working on a new project that uses Jasmine, its a bit more descriptive in the way you write tests (which makes the Business Analysts happy) but the end result was much the same as QUnit.

Upvotes: 1

David Watson
David Watson

Reputation: 3432

Check out the python requests library. I've used it for just such a purpose and it is awesome.

http://docs.python-requests.org/en/latest/index.html

Upvotes: 2

user271275
user271275

Reputation: 63

http://www.soapui.org/

a functional testing tool.

Upvotes: 0

hoblin
hoblin

Reputation: 729

Usually API is regular controllers/actions. So you can test this actions as regular controller inside of server app. Thats like i test my API actions:

describe Api::AccountsController do
  describe "GET :index" do
    it "should be success" do
      do_get
      response.should be_success
    end

    it "should return list of accounts" do
      5.times{ Factory :account }
      do_get
      JSON.parse(response.body).size.should == 5
    end

    it "should return id, name and description of each account" do
      account = Factory :account
      do_get
      result = JSON.parse(response.body).first
      result['account']['id'].should == account.id
      result['account']['name'].should == account.name
      result['account']['description'].should == account.description
    end

    def do_get
      get :index, :format => :json
    end
  end
end

Upvotes: 3

Marnen Laibow-Koser
Marnen Laibow-Koser

Reputation: 6337

Just write some specs with Cucumber and/or RSpec to connect to your app and test the output. No need to drag JQuery into it.

Upvotes: 0

Scott Schulthess
Scott Schulthess

Reputation: 2923

One way you can do this is controller tests using rspec

describe PersonApiController 
  # GET /person/1.json
  it "should respond with a person" do 
     person = Person.create(:name => "scott")
     get :show, :id => person.id, :format => 'json'
     response.should be_success
     response.body.should have_selector('name', :content => person.name)
  end
end

If you want to get even fancier, you can share a api client via a plugin/gem between your client code and your server code and then initialize it using the json like

person_client = PersonClient.new(response.body)
person_client.name.should eql 'scott'

Upvotes: 0

mpartel
mpartel

Reputation: 4492

Any language with a decent HTTP library and a JSON library ought to do. Just pick your favorite language and testing framework and go for it. I'd probably use RSpec and Rack::Test, especially if the API will be implemented in Ruby, but tastes vary.

Edit: You mentioned you'd like to run the tests outside the server. If you're sure about that then use e.g. Net::HTTP instead of Rack::Test.

Upvotes: 6

ndp
ndp

Reputation: 21996

I agree with @mpartel completely.

You'll presumably want a set of unit tests (without the complexity of HTTP) to test the logic of your implementation. Once you go down that route, you'll find that there will be a benefit in writing the tests in the same language.

For example, you if you write it in Rails (and use Rack::Test), you'll also be able to unit test lots of the cases in a simpler Test::Unit (or RSpec) environment.

Upvotes: 0

user266647
user266647

Reputation:

It seems like some have found success with cucumber (checkout this similar question)

What is the recommended method of testing a JSON client-server api?

Upvotes: 0

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