REST has been the de facto standard for APIs for a while now, replacing the relatively cumbersome and XML-only SOAP-based APIs with an architecture that is more flexible, lightweight and easier to develop. However, REST is not without limits of its own. With pure REST, if you need to gather and combine data from multiple endpoints or entities, the API consumer typically needs to invoke multiple endpoints, collect the data from each of these endpoints and combine and filter that data into something useful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Enter GraphQL. GraphQL tries to solve this problem by exposing all data through a single endpoint and allow the API consumer to write queries that retrieve the exact data required at any given moment, all with a single API call. The API consumer composes the query that should retrieve the data required, POSTs that query to the GraphQL API provider, which, if all goes well, then returns the requested data as a JSON document in the response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course, when you’re developing GraphQL APIs, at some points you will want to write tests for them, too (right?). Developers and test automation engineers working with REST APIs and Java will probably have heard of or even worked with REST Assured, but can we use that for testing GraphQL APIs, too? Let’s find out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we start to write some tests, we’ll need a GraphQL API to write tests for first. In this article, we’ll use the SpaceX GraphQL API, which exposes data about the SpaceX company and their space missions, launches and more. The API can be found at https:\/\/api.spacex.land\/graphql\/ and comes with a GraphiQL explorer allowing you to play around with the API and retrieve some SpaceX data yourself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let’s start with a basic example: retrieving some data about the SpaceX company itself, more precisely the company name, as well as the name of its CEO and COO. The GraphQL query required to retrieve this data looks like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n