8 ms·

I prefer cli tools for api driving/testing, and httpie[1] works pretty well for that. [1]: https://github.com/jkbr/httpie https://github.com/jkbr/httpie

a85 13y ago
I like httpie but the app can do a lot more than sending requests now (which you might not be able to do in a CLI tool). You can write tests and run a bunch of requests together to simulate different scenarios: http://www.getpostman.com/docs/jetpacks_writing_tests http://www.getpostman.com/docs/jetpacks_writing_tests.
- glutamate 13y ago
  Here's a library in Haskell if you are inclined to do this with an embedded domain-specific language instead: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/http-test http://hackage.haskell.org/package/http-test
- jjm 13y ago
  Then throw HTTPie into a bash script.
abritishguy 13y ago
There are lots of things that you can do easily with postman but would be difficult with a CLI tool.
- SixSigma 13y ago
  I doubt that completely, citation needed.
  - felipesabino 13y ago
    I agree that CLI are awesome and you can do way more using it that with any other UI (specially a web one), but taking HTTP API testing as an example, postman lets you do a bunch of stuff that are so simple with one click that I can see some people not wanting to dive in the CLI world, write a bunch of stuff and also having to store environment data for requests with extra files (I think thats where the 'difficult' from the previous comment comes along, but that's just me guessing...) Taking that into consideration, Postman's web interface lets you - See all the request history that you can easily reply any of them with one click - Save requests and share them (including a collection of requests) - Have and share environment variables to change, for example, between production and development API urls, password, params, etc (I know, a CLI also lets you do that, but it soooo simple to just select and preview the environment variables from the list) - easily handle oAuth and other authentication forms out of the box But you will suffer (a lot) trying to use Postman to - Handle binary input/outputs - Stream responses - Handle cookies So, depending on what your day to day problems are you should use a different tool... Oh, and I didn't know about HTTPie, thanks for sharing :)
    - SixSigma 13y ago
      None of those things are intractable, I have had scripts handle them all. On top of that, writing scripts educates you on how such systems work. It really isn't challenging.
      - servercobra 13y ago
        Sure. I can script a lot of things and have learned a ton by doing that. But when I'm focused on making an API or debugging one, I don't want to spend the time writing a script if there is a readily available tool that does what I need. I can better spend the time improving the app.
      - lttlrck 13y ago
        Care to share them? It sounds like a lot of people would like to use them instead of Postman.
  - snikch 13y ago
    I find your response to be really arrogant. Postman is an easily installed Chrome extension that can be supplied to everyone on your team, regardless of skill level. Requiring a cli isn't as easy as a one click install - there's dependencies (Python etc.) that are required which, while easy for many, aren't as simple for a lot of web developers - especially those who focus on front end development and may just need an easy tool for inspecting API requests they need to make. There's still a wide market for GUI based programs, and Postman is an excellent extension that I've used for years (even though I'm a CLI guy myself). It's always there, easy to use, and powerful to boot. Edit 1: Grammar / Spelling
    - andkon 13y ago
      Totally agreed. Another benefit (or set of benefits): when you've got 5 CLI tabs open already, and you're trying to remember where your curl response went, it's nice to know Postman has (a) history of recent requests in a readily clickable list, (b) a different window that's easily accessible, and (c) any saved headers and tokens that I can otherwise never remember.
      - SixSigma 13y ago
        Like Tesla said "if you thought a bit more, you wouldn't have to sweat so much" All of those would be eliminated with preparation and planning. And the results would be better quality than ad hoc poking with Bash
        untog 13y ago
        Yeah, if we all prepared and planned perfectly for absolutely everything we do in life then we probably would need less assistance. Meanwhile, in the real world, sometimes things have to be done fast and messily.
        SixSigma 13y ago
        Testing http:// http:// services is not one of those things
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- mlni 13y ago
  Chrome dev tools make testing RESTful backends with curl very easy: right-click on a request in network panel and choose "Copy as curl". Priceless little gem.
  - techaddict009 13y ago
    Can you explain this? I would really be happy if there is any tool which give option "Copy as curl" !
    - threepointone 13y ago
      https://i.imgur.com/sBGycyF.png https://i.imgur.com/sBGycyF.png (would give - curl 'https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css?Iufnib6nCakqGh6wo0m6' https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css?Iufnib6nCakqGh6wo0m6' -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_2) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/34.0.1847.116 Safari/537.36' --compressed )

a85 13y ago

I like httpie but the app can do a lot more than sending requests now (which you might not be able to do in a CLI tool). You can write tests and run a bunch of requests together to simulate different scenarios: http://www.getpostman.com/docs/jetpacks_writing_tests http://www.getpostman.com/docs/jetpacks_writing_tests.

glutamate 13y ago
Here's a library in Haskell if you are inclined to do this with an embedded domain-specific language instead: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/http-test http://hackage.haskell.org/package/http-test
jjm 13y ago
Then throw HTTPie into a bash script.

abritishguy 13y ago

There are lots of things that you can do easily with postman but would be difficult with a CLI tool.

SixSigma 13y ago
I doubt that completely, citation needed.
- felipesabino 13y ago
  I agree that CLI are awesome and you can do way more using it that with any other UI (specially a web one), but taking HTTP API testing as an example, postman lets you do a bunch of stuff that are so simple with one click that I can see some people not wanting to dive in the CLI world, write a bunch of stuff and also having to store environment data for requests with extra files (I think thats where the 'difficult' from the previous comment comes along, but that's just me guessing...) Taking that into consideration, Postman's web interface lets you - See all the request history that you can easily reply any of them with one click - Save requests and share them (including a collection of requests) - Have and share environment variables to change, for example, between production and development API urls, password, params, etc (I know, a CLI also lets you do that, but it soooo simple to just select and preview the environment variables from the list) - easily handle oAuth and other authentication forms out of the box But you will suffer (a lot) trying to use Postman to - Handle binary input/outputs - Stream responses - Handle cookies So, depending on what your day to day problems are you should use a different tool... Oh, and I didn't know about HTTPie, thanks for sharing :)
  - SixSigma 13y ago
    None of those things are intractable, I have had scripts handle them all. On top of that, writing scripts educates you on how such systems work. It really isn't challenging.
    - servercobra 13y ago
      Sure. I can script a lot of things and have learned a ton by doing that. But when I'm focused on making an API or debugging one, I don't want to spend the time writing a script if there is a readily available tool that does what I need. I can better spend the time improving the app.
    - lttlrck 13y ago
      Care to share them? It sounds like a lot of people would like to use them instead of Postman.
- snikch 13y ago
  I find your response to be really arrogant. Postman is an easily installed Chrome extension that can be supplied to everyone on your team, regardless of skill level. Requiring a cli isn't as easy as a one click install - there's dependencies (Python etc.) that are required which, while easy for many, aren't as simple for a lot of web developers - especially those who focus on front end development and may just need an easy tool for inspecting API requests they need to make. There's still a wide market for GUI based programs, and Postman is an excellent extension that I've used for years (even though I'm a CLI guy myself). It's always there, easy to use, and powerful to boot. Edit 1: Grammar / Spelling
  - andkon 13y ago
    Totally agreed. Another benefit (or set of benefits): when you've got 5 CLI tabs open already, and you're trying to remember where your curl response went, it's nice to know Postman has (a) history of recent requests in a readily clickable list, (b) a different window that's easily accessible, and (c) any saved headers and tokens that I can otherwise never remember.
    - SixSigma 13y ago
      Like Tesla said "if you thought a bit more, you wouldn't have to sweat so much" All of those would be eliminated with preparation and planning. And the results would be better quality than ad hoc poking with Bash
      - untog 13y ago
        Yeah, if we all prepared and planned perfectly for absolutely everything we do in life then we probably would need less assistance. Meanwhile, in the real world, sometimes things have to be done fast and messily.
        SixSigma 13y ago
        Testing http:// http:// services is not one of those things
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
mlni 13y ago
Chrome dev tools make testing RESTful backends with curl very easy: right-click on a request in network panel and choose "Copy as curl". Priceless little gem.
- techaddict009 13y ago
  Can you explain this? I would really be happy if there is any tool which give option "Copy as curl" !
  - threepointone 13y ago
    https://i.imgur.com/sBGycyF.png https://i.imgur.com/sBGycyF.png (would give - curl 'https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css?Iufnib6nCakqGh6wo0m6' https://news.ycombinator.com/news.css?Iufnib6nCakqGh6wo0m6' -H 'User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_9_2) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/34.0.1847.116 Safari/537.36' --compressed )