As I was exploring a way to automate testing of my APIs and chaining the response of previous request to next request and so on, I stumbled up on a way to create a simple Automation testing framework using Postman.
We will be able to do the following operations,
- Run a sequence of APIs
- Pass dynamic inputs
- Choose to run specific APIs
- Validations of the test data before request
- Assert responses
Inside Postman
These are the steps we follow inside Postman.
- Create a postman requests in a collection.
- Run the same using postman runner.
- Inputs can be dynamically passed for different test cases using data csv files.
- Response of previous requests can be forwarded to next request using variables.
- Environments and secrets can be parameterized using variables.
Running via CLI and generating comprehensive reports using newman
newman is a node module that gives us a CLI for executing postman collections.
Installation
npm install -g newman
npm install -g newman-reporter-htmlextra
Usage
newman run -d data.csv --delay-request 5000 "Test.postman_collection.json" --reporters=cli,htmlextra
Reports will be generated in a folder called newman inside current working directory.
Using nodejs to have more control and enhancing the scripts
The steps done in command line can be done via a nodejs script as well. This will give us more control than the CLI
const newman = require('newman');
const path = require('path');var testPlan = "TestPlan"; // test plan name
newman.run({
collection: path.join(__dirname, './plan/' + testPlan + '.json'),
// environment: {}
iterationData: path.join(__dirname, './plan/' + testPlan + '_data.csv'),
// iterationCount: 5,
// reporters: ['cli', 'html']
folder: ["Token Fetch", "Get Details"],
reporters: ['cli','htmlextra'],
reporter: {
htmlextra: {
export: './result/' + testPlan + '.html'
}
}
});
Here, the folder option gives us the option to select the requests to run.
Further to explore
- Programtically form requests and response
- Maintain the data in a DB for future if required
- Integrate with current CI to automatically run the tests and generate reports
If you like to explore more please refer the below links.
Reference
- https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/how-to-automate-rest-api-end-to-end-tests/
- https://www.alphabold.com/postman-reporting-templates-using-newman/
Happy Coding!
Leave a 👏 and comment and let me know what you think.
Originally published at https://vigneshm.me/posts/postman_automation/