Consuming APIs

Topics

• What is an API?
• curl
• Code Along with HTTParty
• Access Tokens
• Testing API calls

curl

curl -v https://api.github.com/emojis

Code Along

• app.rb
• Spec - Use Case
  • User can visit / to see a list of github emojis
• Read the API docs

Access Tokens

• GitHub - Personal Access Tokens

Optional: Testing code which uses APIs

Summary

• API is an interface for Applications to use
  • JSON
  • HTTP GET,POST,etc.
  • RESTful routing
• Tools to poke at APIs
  • curl - command line
  • Postman REST Client - chrome
• Using APIs in your Applications
  • HTTParty in ruby apps
• Access Tokens
  • Like a Username and Password
  • Identify you as acting on behalf of a specific user
  • Can have specific permissions
  • Can be revoked
  • What OAuth gives you
• Testing API calls
  • Stubbing API calls
  • thoughtbot - how-to-stub-external-services-in-tests
  • gem 'webmock'
  • require 'webmock/rspec'