API Testing: Meaning
API testing is a sort of software testing that examines an application program interface (API) to ensure it provides the functionality, security, performance, and reliability required. The tests are run directly on the API or as part of the integration testing process. In the context of API-sensitive tasks and applications, it is crucial to test APIs, particularly those that initially focus on the user interface. Moreover, the primary goal of API testing is to:
- Validate responses for single or many API endpoint requests.
- Examine the API’s overall performance, bottlenecks, and efficiency.
- Check for any holes in the API’s general security and authentication.
- Check API status for quality assurance.
- Test the API business logic for data replies.
Benefits of API Testing
- Under earlier testing, developers can check data responses before the final stage of work. However, you can conduct the testing procedure after the completion of the logic layer.
- Under API Testing, you can perform test maintenance without much difficulty. It is far more stable than UI tests, which change daily. Also, you may quickly implement it.
- If the API test result is negative, it helps to determine where the problem is in the system, resulting in faster bug identification.
Types of API Testing
You can classify API Testing into different types. These types are as follows:
● Functional Testing
This test ensures that all API endpoints are operational and performing their intended functions.
● Validation Testing
Though validation testing is one of the final processes in the development process, it is a crucial task to perform. However, it validates features of the product, behaviour, and efficiency. In other words, you may view validation testing as a guarantee of proper development.
● UI Testing
You can test the user interfaces for the Application programming interface during UI testing. However, it focuses on the interface that connects to the API rather than the API itself. Although UI testing is not a specialized API test in terms of coding, it nonetheless offers an overview of the app’s front and back ends’ health, usability, and efficiency.
● Security Testing
This technique guarantees that the API implementation is safe from outside attacks. However, security testing also includes validation of encryption technologies and the architecture of the API access control. Also, it supports authorization validation and user rights management.
● Load Testing
It usually occurs after completing a single unit or the entire codebase. However, this approach determines if the theoretical solutions function as expected. Moreover, load testing measures the application performance under peak situations.
● Runtime Error Detection
This form of testing focuses on the actual operation of the application programming interface, especially the general consequences of employing the API codebase. However, this approach focuses on any one of the aspects like monitoring, execution faults, resource leakage, or error detection.
● Penetration Testing
This type of testing is at the second level of the auditing process. Users with minimal API understanding will try to analyze the danger vector from an outside perspective, which is about functions, resources, processes, or the overall API and its components.
● Fuzz Testing
Another process in the security auditing process is fuzz testing. A large amount of random data will be entered into the system during fuzz testing to discover any forced crashes or bad behaviour. This approach checks the API’s limits to prepare for worst-case scenarios.
Conclusion
Hopefully, you find this article informative. However, IT experts frequently use a variety of terminology to describe the various testing techniques. Thus, we have compiled the types of API testing to explain what they all signify. Therefore, to have a deeper understanding of these techniques, it is necessary to go to API Automation Testing Training Institute in Noida.
