In the dynamic world of technology, my latest addition to the developer's toolkit is commandbox-apiman, a sleek and intuitive command-line interface (CLI) akin to curl, designed for seamless interaction with API endpoints.

Installation

The installation process is easy within the command box environment using the command:

box install commandbox-apiman

Usage

The basic syntax follows the pattern:

apiman <verb> <parameters> <url>

Supported commandline flags

• -q: Query params - Set a semicolon separated list of query params for the request.
• -c: Cookies - Set a semicolon separated list of cookies for the request.
• -h: Headers - Set a semicolon separated list of headers for the request.
• -f: Form Fields - Set a semicolon separated list of form fields for the request. Only valid for POST/PUT operations.
• -d: Data - Set raw data for the body of a request. Only valid for POST/PUT operations.
• -u: User - Set the username for the request.
• -p: Passord - Set the password for the request.
• -showHeaders: Shows the response headers for the request.

Examples

If you need to pass query parameters you can either wrap the url in quotes to pass the query string or you may use the -q paraameter to pass a list of semicolon seperated parameters.

❯ apiman get https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/todos/1

{
    "userId":1,
    "id":1,
    "title":"delectus aut autem",
    "completed":false
}

If you need to pass query parameters you can either wrap the url in quotes to pass the query string or you may use the query paraameter to pass a list of semicolon seperated parameters.

❯ apiman get "https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/comments?postId=1"

Can also be expressed as:

❯ apiman get -q "postId=1" https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/comments

[
    {
        "postId":1,
        "id":1,
        "name":"id labore ex et quam laborum",
        "email":"Eliseo@gardner.biz",
        "body":"laudantium enim quasi est quidem magnam voluptate ipsam eos\ntempora quo necessitatibus\ndolor quam autem quasi\nreiciendis et nam sapiente accusantium"
    },
    {
        "postId":1,
        "id":2,
        "name":"quo vero reiciendis velit similique earum",
        "email":"Jayne_Kuhic@sydney.com",
        "body":"est natus enim nihil est dolore omnis voluptatem numquam\net omnis occaecati quod ullam at\nvoluptatem error expedita pariatur\nnihil sint nostrum voluptatem reiciendis et"
    },
    {
        "postId":1,
        "id":3,
        "name":"odio adipisci rerum aut animi",
        "email":"Nikita@garfield.biz",
        "body":"quia molestiae reprehenderit quasi aspernatur\naut expedita occaecati aliquam eveniet laudantium\nomnis quibusdam delectus saepe quia accusamus maiores nam est\ncum et ducimus et vero voluptates excepturi deleniti ratione"
    },
    {
        "postId":1,
        "id":4,
        "name":"alias odio sit",
        "email":"Lew@alysha.tv",
        "body":"non et atque\noccaecati deserunt quas accusantium unde odit nobis qui voluptatem\nquia voluptas consequuntur itaque dolor\net qui rerum deleniti ut occaecati"
    },
    {
        "postId":1,
        "id":5,
        "name":"vero eaque aliquid doloribus et culpa",
        "email":"Hayden@althea.biz",
        "body":"harum non quasi et ratione\ntempore iure ex voluptates in ratione\nharum architecto fugit inventore cupiditate\nvoluptates magni quo et"
    }
]

Posting JSON data to a service

❯ apiman post http://localhost:8000/ui/auth/login -h "Content-Type=application/json" -d '{username : "admin", password : "commandbox" }'

{
    "data":{
        "isIdentified":true,
        "user":"admin"
    },
    "error":false,
    "pagination":{
        "totalPages":1,
        "maxRows":0,
        "offset":0,
        "page":1,
        "totalRecords":0
    },
    "messages":[]
}

Passing a username and password with a request

❯ apiman get https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges -u "YOUR_USERNAME_HERE"

{
  "object": "list",
  "count": 45,
  "data": [
    ...
  ]
}