In this article, we will review how to use Ruby RSpec for testing REST APIs like GroupDocs. RSpec is a BDD (behavior driven development) framework. You can find more info about RSpec on its official site. There are a lot of different GroupDocs APIs that you can use. In this article we will test one of the User APIs: “Get user profile”.
What You NeedYou need Ruby, Gem, Bundler, and RSpec (gem install rspec) installed on you computer. You also need a GroupDocs account and private and client keys. Find out how to get GroupDocs API keys.
Getting StartedFirst of all, create a folder for future tests (for example groupdocs_tests) and create file with the name Gemfile with the following content:```
source ‘https://rubygems.org’
gem ‘rake’ gem ‘rspec’ gem ‘ci_reporter’ gem ‘groupdocs’
* gem 'rake' - a build tool for Ruby.
* gem 'rspec' - a BDD testing framework.
* gem 'ci\_reporter' - an add-on to Test::Unit and RSpec that allows you to generate XML reports of your test and/or spec runs.
* gem 'groupdocs' - the GroupDocs Ruby SDK.
After adding the **Gemfile** file, you need to use the bundle and install all required gems. We will install gems locally by commands in a terminal. Make sure that you are in the groupdocs\_tests directory:
bundle install –path vendor/bundle
## Creating Test FoldersNow we will create additional folders for our test:
1. In the test's root directory (**groupdocs\_tests**), create a **spec** folder. All Ruby project tests should be in the **spec** folder.
2. In the **spec** folder, create a **user** folder. As we will test the User API we will put all our User test in this folder
## Writing the CodeNow let's write some Ruby code.
1. Create a **spec\_helper.rb** file in the **spec/** folder. We will use this file to configure the GroupDocs SDK and for some helpers.
2. Create a **get\_user\_profile\_spec.rb** file in the **user/** folder. Specs files name should ends with the "\_spec" suffix. "get\_user\_profile" is the name of the API that we will test.
### /groupdocs\_tests/spec/spec\_helper.rb content```
require 'groupdocs'
RSpec.configure do |spec|
# configure API access
GroupDocs.configure do |groupdocs|
groupdocs.api\_server = "https://api.groupdocs.com"
groupdocs.api\_version = "2.0"
groupdocs.client\_id = '' #your Client ID here
groupdocs.private\_key = '' #your Private Key here
end
# share API tests methods
spec.shared\_context :api\_tests do
let(:response) do |spec|
response = request.execute!
end
end
end
/groupdocs_tests/spec/user/get_user_profile_spec.rb content```
require ‘spec_helper’
describe ‘User’ do describe ‘GetUserProfile’ do include_context :api_tests
let(:request) do
GroupDocs::Api::Request.new method: 'GET',
path: '/mgmt/{{client\_id}}/profile'
end
it 'returns not empty user hash' do
response\[:user\].should\_not be\_empty
end
it 'returns user identifier' do
response\[:user\]\[:id\].should be\_a(Fixnum)
end
it 'returns user primary email' do
response\[:user\]\[:primary\_email\].should == "" # your primary email here
end
it 'returns user private key' do
response\[:user\]\[:pkey\].should == "" # your private key here
end
end end
## Running the TestMake sure that your test work fine, in terminal:
rspec spec/user/get_user_profile_spec.rb
If everything is fine, you will see something like this: 
## Coming UpIn the next part, we will see how to test an API with the "POST" and "PUT" methods:
* What is expectation (should and should\_not) and how do we use them?
* What is matchers and how do we use them?