Getting Started with apitester ​

Welcome to apitester, the simple and powerful REST API testing package! This guide will walk you through the steps to set up a new Node.js project and get started with apitester. Will start creating and running API test cases in no time.

For this tutorial we will use Jest to run our testcases, you can use other test runner with apitester.

1. Set up a new NPM project ​

Before we begin, make sure you have Node.js and npm (Node Package Manager) installed on your machine. If you don't have them installed, you can download and install them from the official Node.js website (https://nodejs.org).

Now, open your terminal or command prompt and follow these steps:

1. Create a new project directory:

   bash

   mkdir my-api-testing-project
   cd my-api-testing-project

2. Initialize a new npm project:

   bash

   npm init -y

This will generate a package.json file in your project directory.

2. Install Jest ​

Jest is a popular testing framework for JavaScript and is widely used for unit testing in Node.js projects. Let's install Jest as a development dependency for our project:

npm install jest --save-dev

This will install Jest and add it as a dev dependency in your package.json.

3. Install apitester ​

npm install @9paradox/apitester

This will add @9paradox/apitester as a dependency in your package.json. If we want we can also install it as dev dependency.

4. Create a test folder with your first test file ​

Now, let's create a folder to hold our test files. By convention, Jest looks for test files in a directory named __tests__, so we'll use that:

1. Create the test folder:

   bash

   mkdir __tests__

2. Create your first test file inside the test folder. Let's call it hello.test.js:

   javascript

   //__test__/hello.test.js
   const { apitester } = require('@9paradox/apitester');
   
   const testcase = apitester.createTestCase({
     title: 'verify todos endpoint returns status 200',
   });
   
   testcase
     //step 1. get results form /todos
     .get('https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/')
   
     //step 2. verify the status is success
     .pickAndVerify({ query: 'status', expected: 200 })
   
     //perform the test
     .testWith('jest');

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5. Add a test script to your package.json ​

To run your tests conveniently, add a test script to your package.json file by updating the highlighted line:

{
  "name": "my-api-testing-project",
  "version": "...",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "jest" 
  },
  "keywords": [],
  "author": "...",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "@9paradox/apitester": "...",
    "jest": "..."
  }
}

6. Running the tests ​

You are now all set to run your tests. To execute the test suite, simply run:

npm test

Jest will automatically discover and execute the test files inside the __tests__ directory and your test output will be something like:

> my-api-testing-project@1.0.0 test
> jest

 PASS  __tests__/hello.test.js
  √ verify todos endpoint returns status 200 (248 ms)

Test Suites: 1 passed, 1 total
Tests:       1 passed, 1 total
Snapshots:   0 total
Time:        1.231 s
Ran all test suites.

Congratulations! You have successfully set up a new Node.js project with apitester and Jest for API testing. You can now write more test cases and expand your test suite to ensure the reliability and correctness of your api. Happy testing!

What's Next? ​

Learn how to setup your testing project, as apitester provides different ways to test your testcases. You can continue with writing testcases in javacript/typescript or you can define steps in json files.