Tinkering with Twitter: Twitter and the Search API

Let's say you are an automation developer and your boss gives you a new assignment: Test the search functionality for Twitter, how would you do it?

You could cobble together a Selenium WebDriver framework, one that spun up a browser, identified where the search bar was on Twitter.com, typed in a search keywords, and scraped the screen when the results appeared...

... The problem with this approach? You aren't actually testing the search functionality. You are testing how the web application handles the search functionality. Why not the search functionality itself?

Like the MBTA website we explored back in February, Are You Sure the Bus Line is Listed? Gathering data using REST APIs and REST Assured, much of the data is extracted from an API, an application programming interface.

With this series of blog articles we will be walking through:

1) Setting up a development environment:

• IntelliJ as the integrated development environment (IDE)
• We will be using a programming library called Twitter4J to interact with Twitter's API.
• Since the Test4J programming library is in Java, we will be using that as a programming language.
• Maven handling the third-party dependencies.

2) Coming up with test data and posting it to Twitter.

3) Searching for that test post we created.

Let's begin!

Introduction to API Testing with Postman and Newman

Postman ( https://www.getpostman.com/ ) is tool they use at work to test APIs... along with Swagger, Pact, and Java with Apache HTTPComponents. Postman comes in two versions ... as a Chrome app or a Mac app. They seem similiar, except the Mac app "is packaged with add-ons that make request capturing and cookie handling seamless" according to Postman's documentation.

What is an API?

"Application program interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API specifies how software components should interact and APIs are used when programming graphical user interface (GUI) components. A good API makes it easier to develop a program by providing all the building blocks. A programmer then puts the blocks together". - Webopedia

Need to get up to speed on APIs?

REST API Concept and Examples:



Brought to you by JelledTV's WebConcepts YouTube channel, "This video introduces the viewer to some API concepts by making example calls to Facebook's Graph API, Google Maps' API, Instagram's Media Search API, and Twitter's Status Update API.

• "Youtube's Facebook Page via the Facebook Graph API  
• "Google Maps Geocode API call for the city of Chicago  
• "Apigee Instagram API console  
• "HTTP Request Methods 
• Twitter's Status Update documentation.  

If you want to find many other sites that use APIs, go to ProgrammableWeb.com.

... They also mention how to use this new tool that came out... Postman: https://www.getpostman.com/