Software developers use application programming interfaces to evaluate the performance of software applications. Postman is one of the popular tools they utilize. The Postman is an API testing tool that helps the development team create, share, and test API documentation.
If you are applying for a testing position, you should anticipate being asked questions about API tools. Therefore, it would be best to prepare yourself by reviewing some of the most likely interview questions. And because Postman is the most popular tool on the market, hiring managers are likely to test your knowledge of it. This article will provide you with a list of the top 25 Postman interview questions and sample answers to assist you in preparing for your upcoming interview.
1. What Are Some Of The Details You Know About Postman?
Postman is an HTTP Client program mainly used for testing APIs. It is a well-known API client that facilitates the organization of API design, division, testing, and documentation. Postman allows us to submit HTTP/s queries to a service and receive their answers. By doing so, we can ensure that the service is operational. It also promotes team cooperation on API development by providing a platform for designing, building, testing, and documenting APIs. Postman, which was once a Chrome browser extension, now offers native versions for both Mac and Windows.
2. In Postman, What Exactly Is A Collection?
A collection in Postman is analogous to a folder in our operating system. A collection is a collection of requests, ideally of similar types. It is comparable to our computer’s folder containing only one file. It is one of the essential elements of Postman, and it also includes valuable capabilities such as the ability to execute a group of requests with a single click. Additionally, a collection is crucial for distributing multiple requests at once and offers numerous other functionalities.
3. What Precisely Is An API?
The Application Programming Interface (API) is a collection of procedures, protocols, and tools used to create software applications. Since API is an interface, it specifies how one application should interact with other programs. It facilitates interaction between two software applications by acting as a link between them.
In other terms, API is an Application Programming Interface that allows two software applications to connect and serves as an interface between them.
4. What Exactly Is Postman Cloud?
Postman cloud is a repository where businesses may store and exchange collections. After logging in to the Postman account for their organization, testers can store their requests in the cloud. Any team member can access the cloud collections from anywhere. Multiple test teams that share application requests may find it convenient to use the cloud.
5. When Should Global, Collection, And Local Variables Be Used?
Global variables are all-purpose variables suitable for prototyping and quick results. They are employed when transmitting information to other requests.Most of the time, collection variables store constants that do not change during the Collection’s execution. They are used for constants that do not change during execution and URLs and authentication credentials when only one environment is present. Local variables are only accessible for the length of the request that set them or while the Newman/Collection runner is in use. They are utilized when overriding all other variable scopes.
6. What Are Some Of The Advantages Of Postman?
Postman’s straightforward interface lets you easily send a request and receive a response by pressing a button. Testers can design a customized testing environment for a variety of applications. This setup can accelerate the testing process by storing the variables required by running apps. Postman enables JavaScript-savvy developers to automate tests for bespoke features, such as constructing tests with dynamic parameters and passing data across requests.
7. Can The Command Line Be Used In Postman? And, If So, How Will You Go About It?
Postman provides the Newman command-line application, which I use to execute any Postman collection. It is a NodeJS-based package that runs collections using the Newman Collection Runner. It is compatible with Collection Runner. Following are the procedures I do to use the command line:
- I Initialized Node
- I then install the Newman package via the npm command.
- I launch the collection by launching Postman and exporting the environment to JSON format.
8. What Is The Purpose Of Postman’s “Bulk Edit” Feature?
Postman’s Bulk Edit capability is utilized to add parameters from a previous request to a new one. Since a request can contain numerous parameters, and it isn’t easy to copy and paste each one individually, the bulk edit feature allows us to copy. And paste all the keys and their corresponding values simultaneously.
9. Why Do The Majority Of Developers Prefer To Use Postman?
The following are some of the primary reasons why many developers prefer to use Postman:
- Free: Postman is free software that may be downloaded and utilized by teams of any size.
- Easy: Postman is easy to download and use.
- It can send multiple HTTP queries and store environments for future usage.
- It facilitates the end-to-end management of the API’s lifecycle, from design to testing to maintenance.
- Extensible: You can tailor it to your specific needs using the Postman API.
- The Runtime Service supports the administration of API collections, environments, workspaces, and numerous examples.
- Integration: Newman makes it simple to link test suites with your choice of CI/CD solution
- Community & Support: It has a large community forum where you can rapidly discover answers to any technical issues you encounter while using the software.
10. What Do You Understand About The Postman Monitor?
Monitoring is a mechanism for tracking the performance and health of APIs. Postman’s monitoring capabilities allow us to monitor API development and performance. The primary emphasis of Postman’s monitoring is the operation of collection runners. They execute each request in the collection and examine the test script values. The monitors use the test scripts to validate and track the responses. The generated reports are distributed to the developers via email, Slack notifications, and other platforms based on our configuration settings.
11. What Exactly Does “Digest Auth” Mean In Postman?
Digest Authorisation is one of the permission methods offered by Postman. The client initiates the request by sending it to the API. The server answers with a number used once as a realm value and a 401 forbidden response code. Following this, we will receive a data array containing the login and password and the previously collected server data. The server constructs an encrypted data string from this information to authenticate the request and matches it to what was sent.
We can accomplish this by selecting “Digest Auth” from the Authorization tab’s drop-down menu. The Postman window presents the fields for both phases of the authentication request. The required fields for the second request stage are automatically populated with information received from the server.
12. What Are The Most Frequent Postman Status Codes?
The following are some of the most often-seen Postman status codes:
- 401: The 401 status code indicates an unauthorized request. This status code is displayed if we are not authorized to access the server or have entered incorrect credentials.
- The 404 status code indicates that the server was connected but could not locate the requested resource. This status code typically displays when a server-side resource is unavailable.
- 200: The status code 200 indicates a successful request.
- 201: The 201 status code indicates that the value enclosed in the request has been generated in the database.
- 204: The 204 status code indicates that the request was received successfully, but there is no content to deliver.
- 400: Status code 400 denotes a failed request. A poor request indicates that the request syntax was incorrect.
13. Distinguish Between Postman Monitors And Postman Collection Runner
The Postman Monitor is an automated collection management system. Collections are automatically launched based on defined parameters, whereas Postman Collections require operator intervention to initiate and monitor execution. A postman collection runner manages the collection for the desired number of iterations. It will cease when the software is stopped and is not automatic. Postman monitors will execute the collection at user-defined intervals until the set time. The collection continues to run as long as we have connected the system to the postman cloud.
14. What Is An HTTP Request, According To Your Understanding?
HTTP is a communication interface or a request-response transmission between a client and a server. The primary purpose of an HTTP request is to access a resource on the server. The client makes the HTTP request using the components of a URL, which contains the necessary information to reach the help.
An HTTP request is when a browser sends an HTTP request to the server, and the server responds to the browser. The response delivered by the server contains the status information regarding the request and its content.
15. What Are The Fundamental Building Blocks Of An HTTP Request?
The fundamental components of an HTTP request are as follows:
- Request Header: It provides the content type and the length of the request’s content.
- Payload: It is used to specify the Request Body, which contains the message content.
- HTTP methods: It is a collection of request methods used to execute required operations on a given resource (GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE).
- URI: Uniform Resource Identifier It’s a type of address that specifies the resource.
- HTTP Version: It indicates the HTTP protocol version. For instance, HTTP v1.1
16. Using The Pre-Request Script, Describe How To Add A Header To Each Postman Request.
A script to add a header ensures that all requests use the same header. We accomplish this by clicking ‘View’ in the header and selecting ‘Show postman console’ to open the Postman console.
We can also select a collection by adding a header and clicking on its name. To add a collection’s header, we right-click on the collection, pick ‘Edit,’ and travel to the pre-request scripts. We can then add a script based on our objectives.
17. What Are The Two Methods For Creating Tests In Postman?
There are two different approaches to writing Tests in the Postman. They include the following:
- Functional method: In the functional technique, the syntax is distinct, but JavaScript is employed as the programming language. It is the officially recommended method in Postman. The Postman’s built-in snippets are part of the functional technique.
- Javascript method: The Postman API request scripts are written using JavaScript. The programs for testing are written in JavaScript.
18. What Encoding Format Does Postman Take In Authorization Credentials?
Postman only accepts authorization encoded in Base64. Postman includes this functionality, or we can resort to third-party websites to convert credentials to base64. We utilize base64 since it converts the data into text and sends it in a simpler format, such as HTML form data. We use Base64 because we can rely on the same 64 characters regardless of the encoding language we employ.
19. Can Postman Monitors Be Launched Without Logging In?
Running monitors without logging in is impossible because monitors run the collection even when the machine is turned down. Therefore, we require a location to store and execute the collection automatically. We also require a location to save the reports so we can review them whenever we have the time. This information is stored in our Postman account; thus, we must log in.
20. What Are The Fundamental Elements Of An HTTP Response?
The fundamental components of an HTTP response are as follows:
- The server generates the status or response codes when a client submits a request. For example, 401 signifies unauthorized access, while 200 indicates a successful request.
- The Response Header contains information about the HTTP response message. Examples include Content length, date, server type, and status.
- The Response Body contains the data requested by the client from the server.
- HTTP Version: This section defines the HTTP version. For instance, HTTP v1.1.
21. Why Do We Group Request Under Collections When The Collection Is A Grouping Of Requests?
A collection can contain hundreds of requests. We must subcategorize the requests according to a particular category to find, edit, and amend them more efficiently. In collections, we employ folders for this purpose. A collection may have many folders, and a folder may contain multiple requests. It allows us to generalize the types of requests to a greater extent than the collections, which have previously been generalized. In our system, a collection can be considered the “Songs” folder, which contains all the songs.
22. What Does The Term “Team Workspace” Mean In Postman?
A workspace is a shared environment for API development and testing. Similarly, a team workspace is a shared workspace in which the entire team works on the same collections of requests. It is typically difficult and time-consuming to share collections via external drives or other means; the team workspace synchronizes and collaborates on all of the team’s work in one location.
23. What Exactly Is Scratchpad?
Scratch Pad is a workspace provided by Postman that enables us to function independently of Postman servers. It enables us to utilize a subset of Postman’s features when disconnected from the internet. The capabilities include the creation of collections, requests, and the submission of requests. These are saved locally, and the work is saved to the workspace once logged in.
24. Why Is It Not Advised That We Save Our Work On The Postman Cloud If We Work In An Organization?
A Postman cloud is the company’s repository, comparable to Microsoft One Drive. After logging into the Postman cloud, you may immediately save your work and retrieve it from any location.
It is not recommended to save your work in the Postman cloud because company work is frequently confidential and should be kept private. Postman cloud requires authentication; hence, hackers can compromise the security; therefore, a team workspace is suggested over Postman Cloud for saving work.
25. Where Can We Find The Request History In Postman?
The History tab of the Postman application allows us to view the request history. When we check in to our Postman account, the history is synchronized across all devices. After selecting a request from the History tab, the previously-saved version of the request is displayed. History also includes the executions of collection runs in summary versions. When we select “View More” on a request, we are presented with options to save, document, monitor, delete, or mimic the request. Additionally, we can utilize the control button and the mouse to choose numerous requests.
Conclusion
Postman is now the most popular and beloved API testing tool.
Therefore, practical expertise with the Postman tool has become essential for each backend developer. Utilize the questions above to prepare for your following interview. Before attending the interview, ensure that you have reviewed the job criteria and are aware of the required level of Postman experience. Also, explore the company to learn about its objectives and aims. Conduct a final mock interview and practice answering these Postman interview questions in front of a simulated audience. We hope that this article is helpful to you and that you will be able to secure that job chance and advance your career in this field.
