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APIs 101 Workshop

The document is a workshop presentation on APIs and Postman, led by Alex Mwaniki, covering API essentials, request-response patterns, and how to interact with APIs using Postman. It highlights the significance of APIs in software development and provides resources for further learning. The session includes a Q&A segment and encourages participants to share their experiences and projects.

Uploaded by

Luke musiq
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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30 views28 pages

APIs 101 Workshop

The document is a workshop presentation on APIs and Postman, led by Alex Mwaniki, covering API essentials, request-response patterns, and how to interact with APIs using Postman. It highlights the significance of APIs in software development and provides resources for further learning. The session includes a Q&A segment and encourages participants to share their experiences and projects.

Uploaded by

Luke musiq
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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APIs 101 with

Postman
Learn API essentials
Who I am

Alex Mwaniki
Postman Student Expert,
GDSC Cyber Security Lead, University of Embu

Social Media Handles


@lxmwaniky
Agenda

1 Intro to APIs and Postman

2 Requests and responses

3 Trying things out

4 Follow-up resources

5 Q&A

go.postman.co/build
APIs: A Digital Restaurant

Client Server
What’s an API?
And why should I use one?

● Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) allow


services to communicate with each other
● Software has become more complex and
collaborative over the years. Developers no longer
need to create every service from scratch.
● APIs allow developers to access data from a service
(like Google or Twitter) without any knowledge of
how the codebase has been implemented.
APIs: A bit Technical
There’s an API for everything
Everything

● The Cat API ● Spotify


● OpenWeatherMap ● Twitter
● Genius ● Facebook
● Discord ● Google
● Youtube-to-MP3 ● And so many more!
APIS TURN SOFTWARE INTO LEGO® BRICKS
What is Postman?
Postman is a collaborative API development platform that simplifies
creating, using, and testing APIs with a UI

98%
of Fortune 500
Organizations use Postman

65%
of Global 2000
Organizations use Postman

More than 500,000 organizations & 13 Million developers use Postman


Working APIs: Then and Now
cURL vs Postman

cURL Command Line Postman


Requests and Responses
Request-Response Pattern

Client Network Server

Request

API

Response

Resources
Services
Making Requests
How we interact with the API

The three ingredients to


make a request:
● Method (GET, POST,
etc)
● Address/Endpoint (URL)
● Path
Requests - Methods and Endpoints
Bare minimum for a request

Method
address of the server
GET Retrieve information Host

POST Send information


https://www.google.com/search
PUT/PATCH Update information
Protocol Path
DELETE Delete information The scheme of destination where
the request request can be heard
and executed
Specifying Detail

Building your requests


● Parameters
○ In the query
● Authorization
● Headers and body
○ Data types
Requests - Body
The data payload

● Optional, but often supplied


with POST and PUT requests

● Data types
JSON
○ form data
○ JSON {
○ text “name”: “Jane Doe”,
○ HTML “email”: “[email protected]”,
“birthYear”: 1970
○ XML }
○ files
○ GraphQL
○ … and more!
Receiving Responses

Response elements
● Status codes (200 OK,
201 Created, 404 Not
found)
● Headers

● Accessing body data


Follow Along
Navigate to and fork
https://tinyurl.com/3vt73u4c
Recap

We learned request essentials to


retrieve and update API data:
● Methods
● Addresses
● Parameters
● Authorization
● Body data
Continue Learning APIs as a Student
Expert
Student Expert certification indicates that you are proficient in the
essential skills involved in building and testing API requests in
Postman, including:
● Sending more sophisticated requests in Postman.

● Editing documentation for a collection.

● Writing basic test scripts.

● Running collections, passing data between requests, and


scripting request execution order.

● Have the option to become a Student Leader in your


community
Postman Student Expert
Apply here: https://bit.ly/api101-uoem
Win
Amazing
Swag
Share your learnings with
#PostmanStudent @lxmwaniky
#API101
Public Workspace
1 2
Create your own public workspace
Send it to us, and we’ll send cool
with a collection using any API of
swag to the coolest project
your choice
Submit your workspace URL to
postman.com organizers
Blog writing competition!
1 2
Write what you learned during the Send it to us, and we’ll send cool
session on your favorite platform like swag to the coolest blog
medium or dev.to Submit your blog URL to
Use #PostmanStudent organizers
#PostmanAPI
Resources

learning.postman.co
m
Learning Center

explore.postman.com
API Network

community.postman.co
m
Forum
Q&A
Thanks for coming!

Tell us how the workshop went:


https://forms.gle/fg3tMxjhJgh2TSVk7

Have a question we didn’t cover? Email me at [email protected]

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