1) Explain what is REST and RESTFUL?

REST represents representational State Transfer; it is a relatively new aspect of

writing web API.

RESTFUL is referred for web services written by applying REST architectural

concept are called RESTful services, it focuses on system resources and how state
of resource should be transported over HTTP protocol to different clients written in
different language. In RESTFUL web service HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT
and DELETE can be used to perform CRUD operations.

2) Explain the architectural style for creating web API?

The architectural style for creating web api are

 HTTP for client server communication

 XML/JSON as formatting language
 Simple URI as the address for the services
 Stateless communication

3) Mention what tools are required to test your web API?

SOAPUI tool for SOAP WS and Firefox "poster" plugin for RESTFUL services.

4) Mention what are the HTTP methods supported by REST?

HTTP methods supported by REST are:

 GET: It requests a resource at the request URL. It should not contain a

request body as it will be discarded. Maybe it can be cached locally or on the
server.
 POST: It submits information to the service for processing; it should typically
return the modified or new resource
 PUT: At the request URL it update the resource
 DELETE: At the request URL it removes the resource
 OPTIONS: It indicates which techniques are supported
 HEAD: About the request URL it returns meta information

5) Mention whether you can use GET request instead of PUT to create a
resource?

No, you are not supposed to use PUT for GET. GET operations should only have
view rights, while PUT resource is used for updating a data.

6) Mention what are resources in a REST architecture?

Resources are identified by logical URLs; it is the key element of a RESTful design.
Unlike, SOAP web services in REST, you view the product data as a resource and
this resource should contain all the required information.
7) Mention what is the difference between AJAX and REST?

AJAX REST

 In Ajax, the request are sent to the server  REST have a URL structure and a
by using XMLHttpRequest objects. The request/response pattern the revolve
response is used by the JavaScript code to around the use of resources
dynamically alter the current page  REST is a type of software architecture
 Ajax is a set of technology; it is a technique and a method for users to request data
of dynamically updating parts of UI without information from servers
having to reload the page  REST requires the interaction between
 Ajax eliminates the interaction between the customer and server
customer and server asynchronously

7) Mention some key characteristics of REST?

Some key characteristics of REST includes

 REST is stateless, therefore the SERVER has no state (or session data)
 With a well-applied REST API, the server could be restarted between two
calls as every data is passed to the server
 Web service mostly uses POST method to make operations, whereas REST
uses GET to access resources

8) Mention what are the different application integration styles?

The different integration styles include

 Shared database
 Batch file transfer
 Invoking remote procedure (RPC)
 Swapping asynchronous messages over a message oriented middle-ware
(MOM)

9) Explain how JAXB related to RESTful web API?

JAXB stands for java arch for XML binding.

10) Mention what is the difference between PUT and POST?

"PUT" puts a file or resource at a particular URI and exactly at that URI. If there is
already a file or resource at that URI, PUT changes that file or resource. If there is no
resource or file there, PUT makes one

POST sends data to a particular URI and expects the resource at that URI to deal
with the request. The web server at this point can decide what to do with the data in
the context of specified resource
PUT is idempotent meaning, invoking it any number of times will not have an impact
on resources.

However, POST is not idempotent, meaning if you invoke POST multiple times it
keeps creating more resources

11) Mention which markup language can be used in restful web api?

JSON and XML are the two markup language that can be used in restful web api

12) Mention what is the difference between RPC or document style web
services? How you determine to which one to choose?

In document style web services, we can transport an XML message as part of SOAP
request which is not possible in RPC style web service. Document style web service
is most appropriate in some application where XML message behaves as document
and content of that document can alter and intention of web service does not rely on
the content of XML message.

13) Mention what is JAX-WS and JAX-RS?

Both JAX-WS and JAX-RS are libraries (APIs) for doing communication in various
ways in Java. JAX-WS is a library that can be used to do SOAP communication in
JAVA, and JAX-RS lets you do the REST communication in JAVA.

14) List out the tools or API for developing or testing web api?

Testing tools for web services for REST APIs includes

 Spring REST web service using MVC

 Jersey API
 CXF
 Axis
 Restlet,

15) Mention what is the difference between SOAP and REST?

SOAP REST

 SOAP is a  Rest is a
protocol service
through architecture
which two and design
computer for network-
communica based
tes by software
sharing architecture
XML s
 document  REST
 SOAP supports
permits many
only XML different
 SOAP data
based formats
reads  REST
cannot be reads can
cached be cached
 SOAP is  A REST
like custom client is
desktop more like a
application, browser; it
closely knows how
connected to
to the standardize
server d methods
 SOAP is and an
slower than application
REST has to fit
 It runs on inside it
HTTP but  REST is
envelopes faster than
the SOAP
message  It uses the
HTTP
headers to
hold meta
information

Q #1) What is your understanding of what are RESTful web services?

Answer: Just like SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol), which is used to develop
web services by the XML method, RESTful web services use web protocol i.e. HTTP
protocol method. They have the feature like scalability, maintainability, help multiple
application communication built on various programming languages, etc.
RESTful web service implementation defines the method of accessing various
resources that are required by the client and he has sent the request to the server
through the web browser.

The important aspects of this implementation include:

 Resources
 Request Headers
 Request Body
 Response Body
 Status codes
Q #2) Name the protocol which is used by RESTful web services.
Answer: RESTful web services use a famous web protocol i.e. HTTP protocol. This
serves as a medium of data communication between client and server. HTTP
standard methods are used to access resources in RESTful web service
architecture.
Q #3) Explain the term ‘Addressing’ with respect to RESTful WEB service.
Answer: Just like we require an address with postal code to reach any person, in the
same way, ‘Addressing’ locates resources that are present on the server for the
purpose of hosting web services. This is usually done with URI i.e. Unified Resource
Identifier.
Q #4) Enlist features of RESTful web services.
Answer: Every RESTful web services should have the following features and
characteristics that are enlisted below:
 Based on the Client-Server representation.
 Use of HTTP protocol for performing functions like fetching data from the web
service, retrieving resources, execution of any query, etc.
 The communication between the server and client is performed through the
medium known as ‘messaging’.
 Addressing of resources available on the server through URIs.
 Based on the concept of statelessness where every client request and the
response is independent of the other with complete assurance of providing
required information.
 Uses the concept of caching.
 Works on the Uniform interface.
Q #5) Explain messaging technique.
Answer: Messages are the mode of exchanging data for any type of communication
to take place. In the same way, HTTP protocol plays the role of message
communication between the client and server through HTTP Request and Response
methods. HTTP request is sent by the client who contains information about the data
and in turn, receives HTTP Response from the server.
Messages are the collection of information about the data i.e. Metadata.

Q #6) What are the core components of the HTTP request and HTTP response?
Answer: The core components under HTTP Request are:
 Verb: Includes methods like GET, PUT, POST, etc.
 Uniform Resource Identifier for identifying the resources available on the
server.
 HTTP Version for specifying the HTTP version.
 HTTP Request header for containing the information about the data.
 HTTP Request body that contains the representation of the resources in use.
The core components under HTTP Response are:
 Request Code: This contains various codes that determine the status of the
server response.
 HTTP Version for specifying the HTTP version.
 HTTP Response header for containing the information about the data.
 HTTP Response body that contains the representation of the resources in
use.
Q #7) Explain the term ‘Statelessness’ with respect to RESTful WEB service.
Answer: In REST, ST itself defines State Transfer and Statelessness means
complete isolation. This means, the state of the client’s application is never stored on
the server and is passed on.
In this process, the clients send all the information that is required for the server to
fulfill the HTTP request that has been sent. Thus every client requests and the
response is independent of the other with complete assurance of providing the
required information.

Every client passes a ‘session identifier’ which also acts as an identifier for each
session.

Q #8) Enlist advantages and disadvantages of ‘Statelessness’.

Answer: In the above question, we have understood the meaning of statelessness
with respect to client-server communication. Now, let us see some of its advantages
and disadvantages.
Advantages:
 Every method required for communication is identified as an independent
method i.e. there are no dependencies to other methods.
 Any previous communication with the client and server is not maintained and
thus the whole process is very much simplified.
 If any information or metadata used earlier in required in another method,
then the client sends again that information with the HTTP request.
 The HTTP protocol and REST web service, both shares the feature of
statelessness.
Disadvantages:
 In every HTTP request from the client, the availability of some information
regarding the client state is required by the web service.

Q #9) Enlist some important constraints for RESTful web services.
Answer: Every constraint has positive as well as negative impacts and to produce
an overall architecture, there should be a balance between both of them.
Below mentioned are some important constraints for RESTful web service:
 There should be separate concerns for each server and client which will help
to maintain the modularity within the application. This will also reduce the
complexity and increase the scalability.
 The client-server communication should be stateless, which means no
previous information is used and the complete execution is done in isolation.
In cases of failure, it also helps the client to recover.
 In client-server communication, the HTTP response should be cacheable so
that when required cached copy can be used which in turn enhances the
scalability and performance of the server.
 The fourth constraint is the uniform interface which allows client-server
interaction to be easily understood. This constraint is further divided into four
sub-constraints as:
 Resource Identification
 Resource Manipulation
 Each message is easily understood and is self-descriptive.
 Hypermedia, which is defined as the text with hyperlinks and when clicked,
it moves to another application state.
 Client-server communication should be done on a layered system and thus
the client should only have knowledge about the intermediate level with which
communication is being done,

Q #10) What is a ‘Resource’?
Answer: Just like the ‘Object’ instance, we have learned in Object Orient
Programming Language, in the same way, ‘Resource’ is defined as an object of a
type which can be an image, HTML file, text data, and any type of dynamic data.
There are varieties of representation formats available in order to represent a
resource.
Some most common Resources are enlisted below:
 JSON
 YAML
 XML
 HTML
Q #11) Why proper representation of Resource is required?
Answer: Representation is very important because it determines the easy
identification of resources. With proper representations of resource in the proper
format, allows the client to easily understand the format.
Q #12) Enlist some important points that should be kept in mind while
designing Resources representation for RESTful web services.
Answer: As there are no restrictions on the format in which the resource
representation is done but just that the main requirement is the format of the
representation should be as per the client requirement.
A good resource representation is designed by considering the following main
points:
 The resource representation format should be easily understood by the client
and server.
 The representation should be complete regardless of its format structure,
which may be complex or simple.
 In the case of the link of the resources to other resources, such cases should
also be considered and handled.
Q #13) What is Caching?
Answer: Caching is the process in which server response is stored so that a cached
copy can be used when required and there is no need for generating the same
response again. This process not only reduces the server load but in turn increase
the scalability and performance of the server. Only the client is able to cache the
response and that too for a limited period of time.
Mentioned below are the header of the resources and their brief description so
that they can be identified for the caching process:
 Time and date of resource creation
 Time and date of resource modification that usually stores the last detail.
 Cache-control header
 Time and date at which the cached resource will expire.
 The age which determines the time from when the resource has been fetched.
Q #14) Explain Cache-control header.
Answer: A standard Cache-control header can help in attaining cache ability.
Enlisted below is the brief description of the various cache-control header:
 Public: Resources that are marked as the public can be cached by any
intermediate components between the client and the server.
 Private: Resources that are marked as private can only be cached by the
client.
 No cache means that a particular resource cannot be cached and thus the
whole process is stopped.
Q #15) What are the best practices that are to be followed while designing
RESTful web services?
Answer: To design a secure RESTful web service, there are some best practices or
say points that should be considered.
These are explained as follows:
 Every input on the server should be validated.
 Input should be well-formed.
 Never pass any sensitive data through URL.
 For any session, the user should be authenticated.
 Only HTTP error messages should be used for indicating any fault.
 Use message format that is easily understood and is required by the client.
 Unified Resource Identifier should be descriptive and easily understood.
Q #16) What is Payload?
Answer: The request data which is present in the body part of every HTTP message
is referred to as ‘Payload’. In Restful web service, the payload can only be passed
to the recipient through the POST method.
There is no limit of sending data as payload through the POST method but the only
concern is that more data will consume more time and bandwidth. This may
consume much of the user’s time also.

Q #17) Enlist some of the HTTP methods with description.

Answer: Enlisted below is the list of HTTP methods with their descriptions:
 GET: This is a read-only operation that fetches the list of users on the server.
 PUT: This operation is used for the creation of any new resource on the
server.
 POST: This operation is used for updating an old resource or for creating a
new resource.
 DELETE: As the name suggests, this operation is used for deleting any
resource on the server.
 OPTIONS: This operation fetches the list of any supported options of
resources that are available on the server.
Q #18) What is the difference between the PUT method and the POST method?
Answer: The major difference between the PUT and POST method is that the result
generated with the PUT method is always the same no matter how many times the
operation is performed. On the other hand, the result generated by POST operation
is always different every time.
Q #19) What is your understanding about JAX-RS?
Answer: JAX-RS is defined as the Java API for RESTful web service. Among
multiple libraries and framework, this is considered as the most suitable Java
programming language based API which supports RESTful web service.
Some of the implementations of JAX-RS are:
 Jersey
 RESTEasy
 Apache CFX
 Play
Among these, Jersey is the most popular framework.
Q #20) What are HTTP status codes? Enlist few with meaning.
Answer: HTTP status codes basically are the representation of the status of the task
that has been performed on the server, with the mode of some codes. Every code
has their own meaning.
Some of the HTTP status codes with their meaning are as follows:
 Code 200: This indicates success.
 Code 201: This indicates resource has been successfully created.
 Code 204: This indicates that there is no content in the response body.
 Code 404: This indicates that there is no method available.

1. What is REST?
REST is an architectural style for developing web services which exploit the
ubiquity of HTTP protocol and uses the HTTP method to define actions. It
revolves around resource where every component being a resource that can be
accessed through a shared interface using standard HTTP methods.
In REST architecture, a REST Server provides access to resources and REST
client accesses and makes these resources available. Here, each resource is
identified by URIs or global IDs, and REST uses multiple ways to represent a
resource, such as text, JSON, and XML. XML and JSON are nowadays the most
popular representations of resources.

2. What is a RESTFul Web Services?

Mostly, there are two kinds of Web Services which should be remembered in
your next API testing interview:
1. SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol): An XML-based method to expose web
services.
2. REST (Representational State Transfer): Web services developed in the REST
style are referred to as RESTful web services. These web services use HTTP
methods to implement the concept of REST architecture. A RESTful web
service usually defines a URI, Uniform Resource Identifier a service, provides
resource representation like JSON and a set of HTTP methods.

3. What is a “Resource” in REST?

REST architecture treats any content as a resource, which can be either text
files, HTML pages, images, videos or dynamic business information.
REST Server gives access to resources and modifies them, where each resource
is identified by URIs/ global IDs.

4. What is the most popular way to represent a resource in REST?

REST uses different representations to define a resource like text, JSON, and
XML.
XML and JSON are the most popular representations of resources.

5. Which protocol is used by RESTful Web services?

RESTful web services use the HTTP protocol as a medium of communication
between the client and the server.

6. What are some key characteristics of REST?

Key characteristics of REST are likely asked in a Web API Testing interview. So
please get the answer ready in your mind with these 2 ones:
 REST is stateless, therefore the SERVER has no status (or session data)
With a well-applied REST API, the server could be restarted between two
calls, since all data is transferred to the server
 Web service uses POST method primarily to perform operations, while REST
uses GET for accessing resources.

7. What is messaging in RESTful Web services?

RESTful web services use the HTTP protocol as a communication tool between
the client and the server. The technique that when the client sends a message in
the form of an HTTP Request, the server sends back the HTTP reply is called
Messaging. These messages comprise message data and metadata, that is,
information on the message itself.

8. What are the core components of an HTTP request?

An HTTP request contains five key elements:
1. An action showing HTTP methods like GET, PUT, POST, DELETE.
2. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), which is the identifier for the resource on
the server.
3. HTTP Version, which indicates HTTP version, for example-HTTP v1.1.
4. Request Header, which carries metadata (as key-value pairs) for the HTTP
Request message. Metadata could be a client (or browser) type, format
supported by the client, format of a message body format, cache settings,
and so on.
5. Request Body, which indicates the message content or resource
representation.

9. What are the most commonly used HTTP methods supported by

REST?
 GET is only used to request data from a specified resource. Get requests can
be cached and bookmarked. It remains in the browser history and haS length
restrictions. GET requests should never be used when dealing with sensitive
data.
 POST is used to send data to a server to create/update a resource. POST
requests are never cached and bookmarked and do not remain in the browser
history.
 PUT replaces all current representations of the target resource with the
request payload.
 DELETE removes the specified resource.
 OPTIONS is used to describe the communication options for the target
resource.
 HEAD asks for a response identical to that of a GET request, but without the
response body.

10. Can GET request to be used instead of PUT to create a resource?

The PUT or POST method should not be used to create a resource. You can use
the GET operation which has view-only rights.
11. Is there any difference between PUT and POST operations?
PUT and POST operation are quite similar, except the terms of the result
generated by them. PUT operation is idempotent, so you can cache the response
while the responses to POST operation are not cacheable, and if you retry the
request N times, you will end up having N resources with N different URIs
created on server.
In a Web API Testing interview, you should give a specific example for PUT and
POST operations to make crystal clear to the interviewer. Below is an example:
Scenario: Let’s say we are designing a network application. Let’s list down few
URIs and their purpose to get to know when to use POST and when to use PUT
operations.
GET /device-management/devices : Get all devices
POST /device-management/devices : Create a new device
GET /device-management/devices/{id} : Get the device information identified by
“id”
PUT /device-management/devices/{id} : Update the device information
identified by “id”
DELETE /device-management/devices/{id} : Delete device by “id”

12. Which purpose does the OPTIONS method serve for the RESTful

Webservices?
The OPTIONS Method lists down all the operations of a web service supports. It
creates read-only requests to the server.
13. What is URI? What is the main purpose of REST-based web services
and what is its format?
URI stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. It is a string of characters
designed for unambiguous identification of resources and extensibility via the
URI scheme. The purpose of a URI is to locate a resource(s) on the server
hosting of the web service.
A URI’s format
is <protocol>://<service-name>/<ResourceType>/<ResourceID>.

14. What is payload in RESTFul Web services?

The “payload” is the data you are interested in transporting. This is
differentiated from the things that wrap the data for transport like the HTTP/S
Request/Response headers, authentication, etc.

15. What is the upper limit for a payload to pass in the POST method?
<GET> appends data to the service URL. But, its size shouldn’t exceed the
maximum URL length. However, <POST> doesn’t have any such limit.
So, theoretically, a user can pass unlimited data as the payload to POST method.
But, if we consider a real use case, then sending POST with large payload will
consume more bandwidth. It’ll take more time and present performance
challenges to your server. Hence, a user should take action accordingly.
16. What is the caching mechanism?
Caching is just the practice of storing data in temporarily and retrieving data
from a high-performance store (usually memory) either explicitly or implicitly.
When a caching mechanism is in place, it helps improve delivery speed by
storing a copy of the asset you requested and later accessing the cached copy
instead of the original.