Cucumber-like testing for my API [closed] - ruby-on-rails

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I have been writing my Rails application with Cucumber in TDD mode: Tests first, then the code. Now my application needs an API. What I like about cucumber is, that I can specify my tests in plain English, so even managers understand what's going on.
Is there any way I can do this for my JSON-API?

Answer 1

YES! This is totally possible. Have you checked out the Cucumber Book by the Pragmatic Programmer series?
Here's a quick example:
Feature: Addresses
In order to complete the information on the place
I need an address
Scenario: Addresses
Given the system knows about the following addresses:
[INSERT TABLE HERE or GRAB FROM DATABASE]
When client requests GET /addresses
Then the response should be JSON:
"""
[
{"venue": "foo", "address": "bar"},
{ more stuff }
]
"""
STEP DEFINITION:
Given(/^the system knows about the following addresses:$/) do |addresses|
# table is a Cucumber::Ast::Table
File.open('addresses.json', 'w') do |io|
io.write(addresses.hashes.to_json)
end
end
When(/^client requests GET (.*)$/) do |path|
#last_response = HTTParty.get('local host url goes here' + path)
end
Then /^the response should be JSON:$/ do |json|
JSON.parse(#last_response.body).should == JSON.parse(json)
end
ENV File:
require File.join(File.dirname(__FILE__), '..', '..', 'address_app')
require 'rack/test'
require 'json'
require 'sinatra'
require 'cucumber'
require 'httparty'
require 'childprocess'
require 'timeout'
server = ChildProcess.build("rackup", "--port", "9000")
server.start
Timeout.timeout(3) do
loop do
begin
HTTParty.get('local host here')
break
rescue Errno::ECONNREFUSED => try_again
sleep 0.1
end
end
end
at_exit do
server.stop
end

Answer 2

You can definitely achieve this. You can write step definitions to assert/verify your json responses. Something like this
Given a username and password
When I try to login via the API
Then I should get logged in
While this works, this just tests the API ( controllers/actions ) work or not, ie more like "functional" testing, not Acceptance testing. As such you are not going to test the API consumer itself.