Solution for Chapter 1: Getting Started with API First

Design and Build Great Web APIs — by Mike Amundsen (112 / 127)

👈 Where’s the Code? | TOC | 2: HTTP, REST, and APIs 👉

In the ​Chapter Exercise​, the task is to use the curl command-line tool to pull a series of responses from three related services (company, account, and activity) and save them to disk for later reference. Here is a step-by-step solution.

First, create a folder called services on your local drive and then change directories to move into that newly created services folder:

​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/$ ​​mkdir​​ ​​services​
​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/$ ​​cd​​ ​​services​
​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/services$​

Next, using the list supplied in the ​Chapter Exercise​, as a guide, start to pull the API responses from the services and save them to disk. Here’s one way to do this:

​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/services$ ​​curl​​ ​​/​
​  https://company-atk.herokuapp.com/company > company-home.json
​ 
​  % Total   % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time    Time  Current
​                                Dload   Upload  Total   Spent   Left  Speed
​ 100    77  100    77    0     0    11     0   0:00:07  0:00:06 0:00:01   18
​ 
​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/services$​

The resulting data saved in the file company-home.json will look like this:

​ {"home" : {"name":"company", "rel" : "collection", "href":"/company/list/"}}

You can also use curl in a few other ways to get the same results. Here are some other examples:

​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/services$ ​​curl​​ ​​\​
​ ​  ​​https://company-atk.herokuapp.com/company/list​​ ​​\​
​ ​  ​​--output​​ ​​company-list.json​
​ 
​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/services$ ​​curl​​ ​​-X​​ ​​GET​​ ​​\​
​ ​  ​​https://company-atk.herokuapp.com/company/21r1aeuj87e​​ ​​\​
​ ​  ​​>​​ ​​company-record.json​

This exercise has a total of seven URLs. When you’re done calling all of them, you should have a services folder that looks like this:

​ ​mca@mamund-ws:~/services$ ​​ls​
​ account-list.json
​ account-record.json
​ activity-list.json
​ activity-record.json
​ company-home.json
​ company-list.json
​ company-record.json

You can check the files in the completed folder to compare your API output to the output on the disk.

👈 Where’s the Code? | TOC | 2: HTTP, REST, and APIs 👉

Design and Build Great Web APIs by Mike Amundsen can be purchased in other book formats directly from the Pragmatic Programmers. If you notice a code error or formatting mistake, please let us know here so that we can fix it.