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How can automated testing ensure API compatibility across different versions?

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If you develop or use APIs, you know how important it is to maintain compatibility across different versions. API compatibility means that the changes you make to your API do not break the functionality or expectations of the existing or new clients. However, ensuring API compatibility can be challenging, especially when you have to deal with complex or evolving requirements, multiple platforms, or distributed teams. That's why automated testing is a key tool to help you verify and validate your API compatibility across different versions. In this article, you will learn how automated testing can help you achieve API compatibility and what are some of the best practices and tools to implement it.

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Petar Ivanov

Practical JavaScript & Software Design tips helping you become a better software engineer. ???React, TypeScript, Node…
Anton Georgiev

Software Engineer

1 What is automated testing?

Automated testing is the process of using software tools to execute predefined tests on your API and compare the actual results with the expected ones. Automated testing can help you save time, reduce errors, improve quality, and increase confidence in your API. Automated testing can be performed at different levels, such as unit testing, integration testing, functional testing, performance testing, or security testing. Depending on the level, automated testing can check different aspects of your API compatibility, such as syntax, semantics, behavior, performance, or security.

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Petar Ivanov

Practical JavaScript & Software Design tips helping you become a better software engineer. ???React, TypeScript, Node, GraphQL, Clean Code ?? Author of the "The T-Shaped Dev" newsletter ??
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The goal of writing automated tests is not to achieve a 100% pass rate. The goal of writing automated tests is to get information about any deviations from the expected behavior you codified in those tests in a fast and reliable manner. When coding as a team, tests become more valuable. Tests ensure I don’t accidentally break things I didn’t write and, thus, don’t fully understand.

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2 Why is automated testing important for API compatibility?

Automated testing is important for API compatibility because it can help you detect and prevent breaking changes, ensure backward and forward compatibility, and comply with standards and specifications. Breaking changes are changes that affect the existing functionality or expectations of your API clients, such as removing or renaming an endpoint, changing the data format or structure, or altering the authentication or authorization mechanism. Backward compatibility means that your new API version can work with the old clients, while forward compatibility means that your old API version can work with the new clients. Standards and specifications are rules and guidelines that define how your API should be designed, documented, and tested, such as REST, GraphQL, OpenAPI, or Postman.

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3 How to design your API for automated testing?

To ensure API compatibility, one of the first steps is to design your API with automated testing in mind. This requires following best practices such as utilizing a consistent and intuitive naming convention for endpoints, parameters, headers, and data models. Versioning should also be employed to identify and manage different versions of your API - for example, by using a URL prefix or header. Documentation should be used to describe your API functionality, schema, and expectations - tools like Swagger or Postman can generate interactive and machine-readable documentation. Additionally, contracts should be used to define and enforce the expected behavior and output of your API - tools like Pact or Spring Cloud Contract can be used to create and verify contracts between your API and its clients.

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4 How to implement automated testing for your API?

Once you have designed your API for automated testing, you need to take the necessary steps to implement it. This includes choosing a testing framework and tool that fits your needs and preferences, such as Mocha, Jest, Chai, Supertest, or Postman for JavaScript; Pytest, Requests, or Behave for Python; JUnit, RestAssured, or WireMock for Java; or SoapUI, Postman, or RestSharp for any language. It is also important to write test cases and scenarios that cover the main functionality and edge cases of your API. This includes testing the HTTP methods, status codes, headers, body, query parameters, path parameters, and error handling of your API endpoints. Additionally, you should run your tests regularly and automatically with tools such as Jenkins, Travis CI, or GitHub Actions. Finally, you should analyze and report your test results with tools like Mocha Awesome, Allure, or Postman Dashboard to generate and visualize your test reports and identify any failures, errors, or warnings.

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Anton Georgiev

Software Engineer
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Use containers for different bill of materials or sets of dependency versions. For example jails or Docker can be used to expose different versions of the APIs under test and subsets of test cases can be used across different versions. To address compatibility one should know which tests must pass on which versions. Containerization allows us to bundle products and dependencies togheter and test these bundles under certain conditions with various tools. Projection of containers subsets to test case subsets can be used to determine compatibility across versions.

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5 How to maintain and improve your automated testing for your API?

Finally, after implementing automated testing for your API, you need to maintain and improve your automated testing. This means regularly reviewing and updating your tests, such as adding new tests for features or refactoring existing tests for improved readability. Code quality and coverage tools, like ESLint, Pylint, or SonarQube, can be used to check and improve the quality and coverage of your test code. Additionally, feedback and monitoring tools like Slack, Sentry, or New Relic can be used to collect and communicate the feedback and performance of your API and its tests in order to identify any issues or opportunities for improvement.

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6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?

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How can automated testing ensure API compatibility across different versions?

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1 What is automated testing?

2 Why is automated testing important for API compatibility?

3 How to design your API for automated testing?

4 How to implement automated testing for your API?

5 How to maintain and improve your automated testing for your API?

6 Here’s what else to consider

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