DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks

Endpoints for HTTP Testing

Lorna Mitchell user avatar by
Lorna Mitchell
·
Feb. 12, 13 · Interview
Like (0)
Save
Tweet
Share
6.67K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free
while working on a book ("php web services" from o'reilly, not out yet but soon!) recently, i was looking for some place i could make http requests to, to show off how to make different kinds of requests with different tools. on my own machine, i have a couple of scripts that chatter back giving debug information about the requests that were made, but i wanted to get the tools examples going without any additional dependencies at all. i hadn't used anything like these tools before, but i found quite a few alternatives, so i thought i'd share what i came up with.

example.org, example.net, example.com

the least exciting example, but a solid one nonetheless, the "example" domains are reserved exactly so that we can use them in all our various example code without annoying anyone when that code gets copied and pasted. i use these in places where i'm using code from a real project, but removing urls to protect the innocent.

there's more information about these domains (they have some examples with character encoding in urls and things also) here: http://www.iana.org/domains/special

requestb.in

http://requestb.in/

my favourite by far, this got quite a lot of use in the book! the source is available on github as well, so if you need to do in-house testing of any kind then you can make your own copy of this application.

basically:

  1. visit the site and create a new "bin"
  2. make requests to the endpoint you are given
  3. visit the related view page to view exactly which requests were made, what headers were sent, and so on, all in a pretty graphical setting

requestbin

respondto.it

http://respondto.it/

this tool is also on github so you can grab, use and adapt it, which is fabulous for developers. it's slightly more advanced than requestb.in because you can configure responses for particular requests, but still shows you great detail on what was sent and received, which is great. i didn't use this much because i was really writing toy code but i can see it being a great tool for api development so i'm filing it for future use.

httpbin

http://httpbin.org/

perhaps a little less shiny than the others, but much more specific in the way it works. you request to different endpoints, and it returns information about what was in the request, rather than making requests from one tool, and viewing information in a web page. this seems like a perfect tool for testing http clients, for example.

http testing endpoints

having taken the time to get to know some of these tools, i think i'll be using them more in the future rather than the scrappy bits of php script that i usually throw together! these endpoints are an easy way for people to test without having to set anything else up, or could even be used for debugging without really knowing what too much about what is going on, for example emailing a requestb.in link with specific query data to check what other headers a client is sending in order to debug a request. there must be plenty of other possibilities too, do you use a tool like this? leave me a comment!

Requests

Published at DZone with permission of Lorna Mitchell, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • The Enterprise, the Database, the Problem, and the Solution
  • 5 Tips for Optimizing Your React App’s Performance
  • A ChatGPT Job Interview for a Scrum Master Position
  • What Is Policy-as-Code? An Introduction to Open Policy Agent

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: