Rails 4.2.3 Test my applications REST response - ruby-on-rails

Question

I m building an app which reacts to http requests.
So far it was ok to check the log file and the tables. I used curl to send the request like:
curl -u test -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3000/api/information -d ''
But now i included some kind of response mechanism. My question now is what port do i have to use for my responses?
Is it port 80 (std http port) ? And are there some CLI tools available which allow to handle a session?

Answer 1

The port depends on your config and which arguments you use when starting the server. By default rails start on port 3000 - using port 80 will in most cases require the use of sudo. You can see the port in the output when starting the rails server.
$ rails server
=> Booting WEBrick
=> Rails 4.2.1 application starting in development on http://localhost:3000
=> Run `rails server -h` for more startup options
=> Ctrl-C to shutdown server
There are several browser extensions such as Postman which provide a GUI for sending REST requests - in the way that is much easier than trying to piece it all together in a monster cURL invocation.
This is useful for debugging - but manually testing your applications is very error-prone and known to be an incomplete and flawed approach*. Instead, you should consider using automated tests.
Example of an RSpec request spec:
# spec/requests/pets_api_spec.rb
require "rails_helper"
RSpec.describe "Pets API", type: :request do
subject { response }
let(:json) { JSON.parse(response.body, symbolize_keys: true) }
let(:pet) { Pet.create(name: 'Spot') }
describe "viewing a Pet" do
before { get pet_path(pet) }
it { should have_http_status :ok }
it "has the correct JSON response" do
expect(json[:type]).to eq 'Pet'
expect(json[:data][:name]).to eq 'Spot'
end
end
describe "creating a Pet" do
let(:valid_session) do
# setup session here.
end
before do
post "/pets", { type: 'Pet', data: { name: 'Doge' } }, valid_session
end
it { should have_http_status :created }
# ...
end
end