api_taster

ApiTaster

NOTE

If you want to use this gem with Rails 3x/4.0 please specify version 0.7.0 in your Gemfile.

Version 0.8 of this gem is compatible only with Rails 4.1.

A quick and easy way to visually test your Rails application's API.

Why?

There are already many awesome API clients (such as Postman), so why reinvent the wheel?

API Taster compared to alternatives, have the following advantages:

• API endpoints are automatically generated from your Rails routes definition
• Defining params is as easy as defining routes
• Params can be shared with your test factories

Usage

Add API Taster in your gemfile:

gem 'api_taster'

Mount API Taster, this will allow you to visit API Taster from within your app. For example:

Rails.application.routes.draw do
  mount ApiTaster::Engine => "/api_taster" if Rails.env.development?
end

In lib/api_tasters/routes.rb, define parameters for each API endpoint after the normal routes definition block. For example:

if Rails.env.development?
  ApiTaster.routes do
    desc 'Get a __list__ of users'
    get '/users'

    post '/users', {
      :user => {
        :name => 'Fred'
      }
    }

    get '/users/:id', {
      :id => 1
    }

    put '/users/:id', {
      :id => 1, :user => {
        :name => 'Awesome'
      }
    }

    delete '/users/:id', {
      :id => 1
    }
  end
end

You can change the default lib/api_tasters/routes.rb path by creating config/initializers/api_taster.rb with the content below:

ApiTaster.route_path = Rails.root.to_s + "/app/api_tasters" # just an example

Share Params with Test Factories

If you use a test factory such as FactoryGirl, you can require your test factories and share the params. For example in FactoryGirl you can use the attributes_for(:name_of_factory) method.

Custom Headers

If there are certain headers (such as auth token) that need to be present to consume an API endpoint, you may set then in APITaster.global_headers before APITaster.routes:

ApiTaster.global_headers = {
  'Authorization' => 'Token token=teGpfbVitpnUwm7qStf9'
}

ApiTaster.routes do
  # your route definitions
end

Global Params

If there are certain params (such as API version and auth token) that need to be present in every API endpoint, you may set them in ApiTaster.global_params before ApiTaster.routes:

ApiTaster.global_params = {
  :version    => 1,
  :auth_token => 'teGpfbVitpnUwm7qStf9'
}

ApiTaster.routes do
  # your route definitions
end

Commenting API Endpoints

Before each route definitions, you may use desc to add some comments. Markdown is supported.

desc 'Get a __list__ of users'
get '/users'

Metadata for API Endpoints

For each route definition, you may supply an optional third parameter (hash) as metadata:

get '/users', {}, { :meta => 'data' }

The metadata option is useful for passing in arbitrary data for a route definition. For example, you could specify response expectations so that your test suite could tap into them.

Metadata for every route definition are stored in ApiTaster::Route.metadata. Please read the source code to find out how to get metadata for a particular route.

Missing Route Definitions Detection

Instead of manually finding out which route definitions you need, API Taster provides a warning page that shows you all the missing definitions.

Obsolete / Mismatched Route Definitions Detection

APIs evolve - especially during the development stage. To keep ApiTaster.routes in sync with your route definitions, API Taster provides a warning page that shows you the definitions that are obsolete/mismatched therefore you could correct or remove them.

License

This gem is released under the MIT License.

Author

Fred Wu, originally built for Locomote.