Postman is an API platform for building and using APIs. Postman simplifies each step of the API lifecycle and streamlines collaboration so you can create better APIs—faster.
Postman is a desktop and web application that allows you to make requests to an API from a graphical user interface. We recommend using the Postman account with the Twitter API, Twitter Ads API, and Lab’s endpoints when exploring the APIs functionality in the postman community, as well as when you are troubleshooting issues with your application.
Two Postman collections are available:
- Twitter API v2 collection
- Twitter Ads API collection
APIs are software interfaces into an application or a controller. Many APIs require authentication. API is considered just like any other device to which a user needs to sign in and authenticate to gain access to utilizing the APIs. An authenticated developer has access to making changes using the API, which can impact that application. If a REST API call is used to delete data, that data will be removed from the application or controller just as if a user logged into the device via the CLI and deleted it. It is best practice to use a test lab or the Cisco DevNet sandbox while learning or practicing any of these concepts to avoid accidental impact on a production or lab environment.
Postman is an application that makes it possible to interact with APIs using a console-based approach. Postman allows for the use of various data types and formats to interact with REST-based APIs.
Dashboard
The Postman application has various sections that you can interact with. The following sections are the ones that require the most focus and attention:
- History
- Collections
- New Tab
- URL bar
The History tab shows a list of all the recent API calls made using Postman. Users have the option to clear their entire history at any time if they want to remove the complete list of API calls that have been made. This is done by clicking the Clear All link at the top of the Collection window. Users also have the ability to remove individual API calls from the history list by simply hovering the mouse over an API call and clicking the trash can icon in the submenu that pops up.
Clearing the Postman API History
API calls can be stored in groups, called collections, that are specific to a structure that fits the user’s needs. Collections can follow any naming convention and appear as a folder hierarchy. For example, it’s possible to have a collection called DNA-C to store all the Cisco DNA Center API calls. Saving API calls to a collection helps during testing phases as the API calls can easily be found and sorted. It is also possible to select a collection to be a favorite by clicking the star icon to the right of the collection name.
A Favorite Collection
Tabs provide another very convenient way to work with various API calls. Each tab can have its own API call and parameters that are entirely independent of any other tab. For example, a user can have one tab open with API calls interacting with the Cisco DNA Center controller and another tab open that is interacting with a completely different platform, such as a Cisco Nexus switch. Each tab has its own URL bar to be able to use a specific API. Remember that an API call using REST is very much like an HTTP transaction. Each API call in a RESTful API maps to an individual URL for a particular function. This means every configuration change or poll to retrieve data a user makes in a REST API has a unique URL—whether it is a GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, or DELETE function.
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