On the SitePoint PHP blog author Younes Rafie has returned with another tutorial, this time with a focus on how Postman can help master your API workflow by making use of several of the features it already includes.

Building good APIs is hard, and anyone who had the chance to do so can relate to this. A project can easily grow to become a mess. One can keep trying to adopt an approach to make it more enjoyable, like trying a documentation-first workflow, but something always feels clumsy.

I was trying out Postman lately, a tool we’ve briefly covered before, and I discovered that they’re doing a great job by providing an integrated environment for different components of an API, like authorization, testing, documentation, versioning, etc.

He then goes through the use of the tool, including screenshots along the way for:

• Making requests
• Authorization
• Environment Variables
• Testing
• Validating JSON schemas
• Working with collections

The post finishes up with a look at generating documentation for the API using Postman's "View in Web" feature including integrating example calls and publishing it. There's also a look at exporting and importing data and a few links to some other helpful resources.

On the NetTuts.com site there's a tutorial posted showing you how to set up and use basic authentication in the WordPress REST API. This is part two in their series introducing the WordPress REST API.

In the introductory part of this series, we had a quick refresher on REST architecture and how it can help us create better applications. [...] In the current part of the series, we will set up a basic authentication protocol on the server to send authenticated requests to perform various tasks through the REST API.

They talk about the methods that are available for authentication and how to configure your server and WordPress instance to use it. From there they show how to make authenticated requests to the API using various tools:

• Postman
• a Javascript framework (jQuery)
• the command line via curl
• using the WP HTTP API

Example code and screenshots are provided for each (where appropriate) helping to ensure you're up and working quickly.