Our application is a API based one wherein the frontend relies on REST API calls to the back end. This sometimes creates a problem wherein the frontend team can't move forward unless the backend API's have been implemented since they invariably progress at different speeds. Is there a way to set up a server so that the front-ent can work independently regardless of the backend status ?
I know this is a bit of an old post but I created a tool just for this purpose and I thought I should share it for anyone who stumbles across it.
It's called Interfake and you can find it at https://github.com/basicallydan/interfake. I frequently use it for prototyping APIs which haven't been built yet, in fact that is my main use of it. I hope that helps.
A common solution that we work with is as follows :
FE and BE contracts/APIs are agreed upon and the back end apis are mocked.
The BE rest APIs use a filter that we configured.
For all the apis that are ready, the filter redirects to the correct api and for all the apis that are mocked the filter redirects to the mock api.
So transparent to the FE team as the BE team is building and completing more apis, they just update the map that the filter looks and and automatically the back end apis get invoked as soon as the BE team is ready to open it up.
So the flow is as follows :
FE ->BE Rest API Server
|API Filter->(for apis updated in the map as complete)-->server/port with actual api
|------------->(for apis that are still being mocked) --> server/port with mock
Hope that helps.
Related
I have an application with (nuxt js using nuxt-auth) with local authentication so far (later I want to add git and google auth).
Now I need to add authentication to invoke other services / API (like google cloud rest API, payment system, youtube API, etc...)
The question is: the user is authenticated only once (during login to the application.) but each of these 3rd party APIs has its own authentication.
How to implement multiple authentications. (I read the documentation and google for the entire day but there is no clear answer).
As of today, it looks like it is not doable (people are needed on this module): https://github.com/nuxt-community/auth-module/issues/889
So, you would need to make it manually by plugging the APIs yourself.
Answer to your latest question~comment
Nuxt is indeed nice with some of it's modules (but you can totally dislike it, no problem :D).
First thing that you need to know, is that this project (nuxt-auth) is not the biggest one, #pooya is doing his best but he is on a lot of projects, so he cannot give all of his love to it. Then, you also need to understand that it's working great but it's still in a decent beta state with a lot of missing features, needed documentation and a lot of small things to make it an all rounded solid top notch solution.
That do not mean that you should not use it, I'm just saying that this module do have some limitations. Hence, the fact that it is not supporting a whole lot of OAuth solutions in a clear + simple + flexible way. And some breaking changes may be introduced in future updates.
The module is aimed towards having an OAuth solution to block the content of your website behind it (in my opinion). It means that you will usually use a single login solution and then, being able to have access to your app. I don't think that it's a viable multi-OAuth solution (yet).
Some services don't even need to use a solution like this. Stripe for example, should not be handled on the frontend but communicate with a backend for sensitive variables and just send minimal info thanks to Stripe Elements.
That said, the most common solution is JWT or OAuth2, and you could totally have a backend service or service like Okta, Auth0 or alike, do the heavy lifting by allowing simple logins to providers (Github, Google etc...).
To sum up, you do connect to this backend/service thanks to nuxt-auth, the service itself does the provider connection and you get the best of both worlds while still connected in a secure way through your initial nuxt-auth entry point login.
Or you could try to reach the community on Discord, see if somebody knows how to do it. Or even try to read the source code to see if it is currently feasable.
And that's my 2cts.
Ive been making API's for about a year now and I was taught to use http://IPAddress:Port/api/v1 all the time when building an API with express.js. Is there a specific reason I would want to do that? Is this just denoting that the API is in development? Ive recently changed my API to not run on port 3000 so that I am able to just say http://IPAddress.com/ instead of http://IPAddress.com:3000/api/v1 and it works just fine the new way.
One main reason for versioning an API is because it may be that an API can be improved upon but doing so might lead to breaking changes (for example, it might not work for applications that are consuming the API because an endpoint has been modified).
So, the solution to this is to allow consumers of the current API (v1) to keep using it until they want to switch, and release an updated version (v2) for new consumers.
Here's some more info on it: https://restfulapi.net/versioning/
I got a project assigned where we already have an up and running website and one of our clients wants to be able to track statistics from the website.
We want to make this available to all our clients as soon as we finish the development. Note that each 'client' have their own 'subdomain' to say so. Eg. www.website.com/client1 , www.website.com/client2 , etc. And we want to track the usage separately for each of these clients.
We will need to create statistics based on the usage of our own platform, pull in data registered by Google Analytics and also pull in data from a 3rd party which they will offer by an API of their own (they have a 3rd party solution that uses the data accessible via our API).
All this data needs to be shown on a webpage with graphs and tables.
I wanted to make sure we choose the right architecture from the start, in order to avoid scalability issues later on.
Started reading about Private and Public API's lately.
For now, we do not have another (internal) application yet that would use our own statisics, it would just be the website using it. But in order to be able to scale-up later if needed, and another application would like to use the statistics I think a private API would benefit us greatly.
In order to allow 3rd parties to use the statistical data we chose to let out, I was thinking of creating a Public API.
Is a Private&Public API the correct way to go about this?
One of the questions I am stuck with is how does the architecture for these API's look like. Mostly, right now we already have a public API regarding vacancy data. This 'API' is basically just a PHP class (controller) inside our CodeIgniter solution. It gets called via its URL and returns a JSON object with the results. (e.g. www.website.com/api/vacancy/xxx)
In order to create a (proper) private & public API solution/architecture. Should the API be set free from the website (CodeIgniter)? What are the common go-to solutions for this?
Or is it fine to keep it in our current platform the way it is now? (and people call the stats API via www.website.com/api/stats/xxx for example?)
It's almost always right to go with microservices like architecture so your initial thoughts sounds reasonable. Acting like this will give the possibility to scale and deploy your api independently and also will help you avoid performance side effects to your site (and vice versa). Pay attention how you access your main site data from within the new api if you don't want to finish with a monolith application.
Regarding the API i would suggest you to implement protocol like oauth2 in order to achieve the flexibility you (might) need. Also you can use swagger to document and test your API.
All i said might helps you a lot but first you have to answer yourself do you really need to go so deep or you just need a simple solution.
I think multitenancy is the best choice. Generally speaking, multitenancy is when every customer has own database. Data is separate. The codebase is same and already exists. As I understood the project is in progress status. You do not redesign and rewrite anything.
I don't know about testing but I would like to have a clear picture on how is API testing different from other testing methods.
API testing will not include UI as regular testing have
API testing requires basic networking knowledge such as what is the use of GET, POST, PUT, etc commands used.
API testing includes having knowledge of how various html elements work. For example, If I press a button, what will be the next function call. We need to know how 'button' element works
In API only API functions are tested, but in regular testing all the elements are tested
There are different tools used in API testing. POSTMAN is one of them
In API Testing we test Backend functionality while in Regular testing we check UI + Functional testing.
API Testing is helpful in testing Core Functionality.It helps us to reduce the risks.
Steps to Test API Manually:-
To use API manually, we can use browser based REST API plugins.
a)Install POSTMAN(Chrome) / REST(Firefox) plugin
b)Enter the API URL
c)Select the REST method
d)Select content-Header
e)Enter Request JSON (POST)
f)Click on send
g)It will return output response
Steps to start API Automation using REST
in general API testing is made for not doing many similar actions, when we can easily measure the result.
For example if you app button is not on the right place, it is hard to measure using code.
Another example is when you write a library for collections you can say just once:
CheckIntersect method:
result = mylibrary.getIntersection([1,2,3,4], [3,4,5,6])
if result != [3,4]
postTestError("CheckIntersect [1,2,3,4], [3,4,5,6]" + result.ToString() )
In this case you can easily measure the result, and not have a fear of you can't even find the problem in code.
I would like differentiate API vs. Other Testing instead looking into technical details.
API: Testing point of view the API is so important because, we can prepare independent test cases that are separate files. This makes our test approach relatively simple.
For better understanding, "Web API is typically done as HTTP/REST, nothing is defined, output can be eg. JSON/XML, input can be XML/JSON/or plain data. There are no standards for anything => no automatic calling and discovery."
API is a simple interface using HTTP protocol.
Other Testing:
Other testing like GUI, Regression, Unit, etc. Testing is absolutely essential for any application has to be in user friendly. The end user should be comfortable while using all the components should also perform their functionality with utmost clarity. Different Functional and GUI Testing can refer to just ensuring that the look and feel and Functional usability of the application is acceptable to the user.
Conclusion:
API can be:
Developed by one company, used by another company, and hosted by a third company Such involvement of several companies is a business cases for independent testing of API.
Example: Weather information API Developed and Tested by One & Accessed by many.
General Testing is testing each and every feature of the application from UI like web or mobile .
But,
API Testing is to verify the JSON Request to Server and Response from the Server .
If the application is using API all the content and Features based on the API Response from the Server .
For Example In FB app Profile screen, if the name is wrong ,
you can check from UI that general Testing, The same thing you can
Check it from API Response from the server , like below.
{"name":"Dharma","friends":450}
I am new to web dev but I have managed to build my site using GWT and GAE. I use RequestFactory for client-server communications.
Now, someone wants to make mobile applications that use my backend.
I have found that RequestFactory works very well with Android. But I am somehow afraid it will not work with other "not-google" front ends (iOS for instance).
So my question is, can I make an API based on my RequestFactory backend (servlet) that can be used by any client? Any initial pointers as to how to implement it would be appreciated.
I guess technically it would be possible. However, if you want to create an api anyone can use, you probably want an api were you specify both how to communicate with the api and the content send/received by the api. With RequestFactory both the how and what is shielded by RequestFactory. So if someone wants to communicate with your api and can't use the RequestFactory code in the project, the how and what of RequestFactory must be reverse engineered, and could change anytime because it's not guaranteed. Not the most elegant way to go forward.
A better approach is define an open api were you specify the how and what. For example with
and apu based on REST (the how), communicating JSON data, and to specify the content format (the what). An example of such an api is the twitter api.
For your own project you could build on your api also, for example by using RestyGWT. Then you don't have to maintain both the code for the RequestFactory interface and REST interface. For other platforms there are probably several libraries available to make developing against a REST interface easy.