COPS(IITBHU) APIS 101 WITH POSTMAN

Yash Raj — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 13:42:07 +0000

API stands for Application Programming Interface.
APIs are the little pieces of code that make it possible for digital devices, software applications, and data servers to talk with each other, and they’re the essential backbone of so many services we now rely on.

Any Developer, regardless of the Tech Stack they use, should know at least the basic of this fascinating yet simple technology.
To ensure this, COPS (IITBHU) organised a hands-on workshop, hosted by Postman Student Expert Lakshya Singh!

The Initiation

Lakshya Kicked-Off the Session by introducing himself to the participants and was quick to create a very interactive environment by asking everyone to mention the Engineering Branch they are enrolled in.

The Presentation

The Workshop began with a Presentation meant to Familiarise everyone with the basics of APIs and Postman.

Agendas of the workshop

Intro to APIs and Postman
Requests and Responses
Trying things out
Follow-up resources
Q&A

APIs

Lakshya gave the non-technical explanation of an API using the example of a Restaurant where the waiter (API) takes the Orders of the Customers (Requests), Passes it on to the Chef and then returns with the Dish (Response).

The Technical Definition followed, which in brief was :

API is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other by taking requests and returning responses

A few more examples were explain what APIs are and what they are used for.

Postman Introduction

Lakshya started-off this section by drawing a comparison between the Terminal (which uses Curl) and Postman for using the API functionalities.
Postman clearly turned out to be the Best choice for API related work since its UI makes it very simple for us to send or receive data and then to process/understand the responses.

Ingredients to make a Request

Method - Type of Request

GET POST PUT PATCH DELETE
Endpoint - Target URL

http://postman-student.herokuapp.com/
Path - The exact location of the desired API

jokes/1/

A complete API Request made using Axios:

   axios({
         headers: {
             Authorization: "Token " + " "
         },
         url: http://postman-student.herokuapp.com/ + "jokes/1/",
         method: "GET",
         data: {}
     })

Response

Status Code - Signify the Success of Failure of Requests/Responses

200 OK 201 Created 404 Not Found

Response Data - JSON

{
  "id": "1",
  "author": "User",
  "joke": "Bugs are features",
  "source": "jokes.dev"
}

The Hand-On Session

This part of the Workshop Lakshya showed us practical use of APIs using Postman to Create request bodies, send Requests, and then to comprehend the Response received.
We were asked to fork this Basics of API, and then we were able to follow along.

Lakshya like a true expert showed us all the Request Methods and resolved the issues and queries of the participants instantly.
There were many funny instances also along the way, one of which is:

Lakshya was unable to pick an ID for a new POST request on the jokes/ API because the participants has already taken most of the IDs including 11 (his B'Day Date xD), 22, 101....
He finally chose the ID 111 suggested by me in the comments!

We as the Participants were surely amused ;) !

Conclusion

The workshop was wrapped-up with Lakshya sharing the information about being a Postman Student Expert, about Postman being an Organisation in GSOC and how we can contribute to this Splendid Technology as Developers.

He then shared more Resources related to APIs and Postman and ended the workshop with a Q&A session.

The Workshop was a Great Learning experience for me and I was able to make myself more familiar with APIs and how I can use Postman seamlessly to test the APIs I create.
The Host was extremely Co-operative, Friendly and Knowledgeable which made the session even more Interesting and Interactive.

Thank You : ) !

DEV Community: Yash Raj