2020 WRAP UP!!!

2020 started with the devastating global pandemic, which continues to bring the world to a standstill. This year has been unprecedented for a number of reasons, with the COVID-19 crisis looming large. The good news is that we’ve almost made it to the end of 2020! Between the global pandemic, stock market volatility, lockdowns, and economic downturn by HIS GRACE we all managed to keep it going.

Professional pathway this year has been cool, where got to learn new technology and put my legs into the 'API Testing' world, away from the usual road of my Testing journey. Grateful to my company Billennium who gave me this opportunity to play around in 'API Testing' and to POSTMAN and its Community for being a mentor to date.

All this motivated me to write my own BLOG on 'API Testing' with some add-ons although being a Begineer 😇 Here is the link: https://softwaretestingcafebyjency.blogspot.com/ do check it out 😇

Hoping and Praying 2021 will be a safe and growing year for all of us!

Have a great year ahead!!!

Prayerful New Year!!!

Welcome 2021💥

API Testing 'A Beginners View': Environment and Variables In POSTMAN

In this post let’s try to have a better understanding of the Environment and Variables in POSTMAN

Let’s start with Variables: A variable is a bucket that holds values that can be changed. Suppose you are developing a mobile application. There are some values that will be used throughout the application or some values might be unique to a functionality. Hardcoding of values everywhere in the design is not a good practice in such situations variables can be used. Define a variable as per your need i.e. locally or globally and use its referenced name wherever needed. If you are required to update the value of a variable, just update the value where you have declared. Everywhere updated values will be used.

The same concept applies to Postman. We have many usages of variables in Postman. Let's check out a few of them:

1. In our day-to-day work life, we might need to test systems in different environments like QA, Dev, Stage, etc which would have a different set of domains. Here variables make our job easier. We can store the domain name as per environment in a variable and can call that variable here.
2. We can use variables at several places to make it parameterized such as Query- parameters, headers, authorization, request body.
3. Variables can be used to chain requests in the collection. Extracting data from response, storing, and using it for another request as input are possible by using variables.
4. Variables can also be used in Pre-request and Tests Scripts. 

Next, Let’s Understand Environment: Environment in POSTMAN is a set of variables that can be assigned a value and used during your work. The environment is tied to the current operating environment: each operating environment has its own POSTMAN environment. To visualize this, I have created an “API Testing 'A Beginners View'” environment with some variables.

There are two columns for the variable's value. The only difference is that if you share your environment with your team, then the value from the first column will be shared.

Let's check out some usage of Environments:

1. We can create, share, duplicate, export, and delete an environment. 
2. You can download it as JSON.
3. Variables defined in an Environment are Local variables. It means you cannot use variables of an environment in another environment. To solve this we have another type of variable called Global variables. Global variables do not belong to specific environments. It is available in all scopes. You can not select multiple environments at the same time. In that case, Global variables will be helpful.