WEBVTT 00:00.420 --> 00:06.690 Now, something very important for this course is going to be our ability to test and try out our API. 00:07.020 --> 00:11.280 Now, if it's a really simple API and you'll notice this throughout the course, a lot of the times 00:11.280 --> 00:12.890 will just do it in the browser. 00:12.900 --> 00:16.050 For example, ours will be local hosts instead of like zappy code here. 00:16.650 --> 00:19.170 And you can just straight see what your API is going to look like. 00:19.180 --> 00:24.600 But there's going to be some instances where we have to, you know, pass in a username and password, 00:24.600 --> 00:26.430 maybe an authentication token. 00:26.940 --> 00:30.470 And that's not covered with a standard browser like this. 00:30.480 --> 00:36.060 You need to have some sort of way to interact with the API and create these HTP requests. 00:36.210 --> 00:40.550 So there's lots of programs and tools out there that can help you with this. 00:40.560 --> 00:43.860 For example, if you search, reste client windows. 00:43.920 --> 00:47.370 If you have a Windows computer at risk client Mac, you can go find a bunch of them. 00:47.880 --> 00:49.230 Some are free, some are paid. 00:49.230 --> 00:51.980 Personally, the one that I use on my computer is poor. 00:52.110 --> 00:54.210 This is, I think, a Mac exclusive. 00:54.780 --> 00:56.820 And it does cost money, but it's a really slick one. 00:56.820 --> 01:02.970 And basically it just allows you to really customize your HTP requests, which is what we're going to 01:02.970 --> 01:06.090 be using to test our API and see how it works. 01:06.660 --> 01:08.810 But this is not required by any means. 01:08.820 --> 01:10.770 You don't have to get one of these reste clients. 01:10.770 --> 01:15.750 In fact, what I'm going to be showing you in the course whenever we need to do this is using something 01:15.750 --> 01:16.600 called Kerl. 01:16.980 --> 01:19.770 So go ahead and open up the terminal on your computer. 01:20.130 --> 01:21.090 I'm going to open up mine. 01:21.090 --> 01:21.840 I'm on a Mac. 01:22.110 --> 01:24.990 If you're on a Windows computer, yours is gonna be the command prompt. 01:25.110 --> 01:27.630 And if you're on Linux, it's still going to be the terminal. 01:28.170 --> 01:32.190 But basically the commands for Perl are all the same everywhere. 01:32.190 --> 01:37.770 Basically, you just have to type Kerl space and then the name of the Web site that you want to visit. 01:37.920 --> 01:43.090 So if we go back to the zappy code example, which is Zappy COCOM slash courses. 01:43.390 --> 01:43.730 Okay. 01:44.160 --> 01:47.670 So you can see if we do it in the browser, we get sort of the nice visualization. 01:47.760 --> 01:53.610 But if we go ahead and copy this and bring it to our terminal and we say Kerl space and then that you 01:53.610 --> 01:58.710 are L and I hit enter, it's going to bring back the exact same information here. 01:58.710 --> 02:03.270 You can see this is the Jace on the displays, all the courses for zappy code. 02:03.300 --> 02:08.160 Now when we really get into it, we're gonna be adding some additional options to this Kerl command. 02:08.190 --> 02:13.200 We're gonna say, hey, pass in this username and password or pass in this authentication token. 02:14.130 --> 02:17.760 So I just wanted you to know you can use Kerl, which we'll be using in the. 02:18.240 --> 02:19.530 What we'll be using in the course. 02:19.560 --> 02:24.330 But if you're gonna be working with API is a lot, I really recommend going and getting some sort of 02:24.330 --> 02:30.120 rest client as they have really cool features, like you can save a bunch of those requests that you 02:30.120 --> 02:33.130 have sort of piled up so you can quickly test your API. 02:33.720 --> 02:39.060 You can really get to edit the pieces where, for example, you'll notice when we get to curling really 02:39.060 --> 02:42.900 long things like we're gonna have to keep moving the cursor to find exactly what we want. 02:43.470 --> 02:45.360 It's just a little bit smoother with those. 02:45.640 --> 02:45.830 Okay. 02:46.320 --> 02:49.930 So with that in place, let's go ahead and actually start building our API.