Frisby.js: BDD For Your REST API

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: BDD for your REST API Vance Lucas • Co-Founder, Brightbit http://brightb.it

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Who are You? • Vance Lucas • http://vancelucas.com • @vlucas (for heckling) • Brightbit • http://brightb.it • Design, Development & Consulting for web apps, mobile apps and APIs

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What is Frisby.js? • Firsby.js is a JSON REST API testing tool written in JavaScript using Jasmine and node.js • npm install frisby • API Docs: http://frisbyjs.com/ • Fork me: https://github.com/vlucas/frisby

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Why Make Frisby.js? • Developed for a Brightbit client during a major API code refactoring • Needed to ensure unmodiﬁed API outputs were the same in both old & new versions • Needed to ensure apps would not break • Client’s production API trafﬁc • 2k+ req/s baseline (24/7) • 4-5k req/s peak

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Behavior Driven Development

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BDD is driven by business value; that is, the beneﬁt to the business which accrues once the application is in production. The only way in which this beneﬁt can be realized is through the user interface(s) to the application, usually (but not always) a GUI. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavior_Driven_Development

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BDD tests the user interface of your application

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A developer’s user interface to your application is your API

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Are you sure your API is working exactly like it is supposed to?

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Integers & Floats are not strings, Boolens are actually boolean, etc.

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Frisby.js Can... • Ensure that your API is working (with seamless integration into Continuous Integration tools like Jenkins, etc.) • Check return values • Check return types and object structures • Test your full stack instead of just code • Act as basic developer API documentation • Help users report bugs with code

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Full Stack Testing • See and use your own API from the perspective of your developers • Test through the caching layer - enables tests for cache invalidation issues • Encourages you to setup a proper test/ development environment (to not create and delete real items via your API)

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Bug Reporting • Put your Frisby tests in an a public GitHub repository & share the URL • Developers can fork your repo, enter their auth details, and run the API tests • You may want a test/dev (non-production) API url for this • Developers can submit pull requests to report bugs in your API with Frisby tests • You can review, ﬁx the issue, and merge in their code to prevent regressions

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The Frisby.js API

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Simple Syntax frisby.create('List objects from webservice') .get('http://mywebservice.com/example.json') .expectStatus(200) .expectJSONTypes('items.*', { id: Number, name: String, has_stuff: Boolean, }) .toss();

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Helpers / Conﬁg • globalSetup • setup • reset • timeout • addHeader • removeHeader • setHeaders • auth • after / afterJSON • get / post / put / delete • create / toss

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Expectations • expectStatus • expectHeader • expectHeaderContains • expectJSON • expectJSONTypes • expectBodyContains • expectJSONLength • expectMaxResponseTime

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Inspectors • inspectJSON • inspectBody • inspectRequest • inspectResponse • inspectStatus