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Welcome to this video using parameters

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and API calls. Up until now we've talked

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about endpoints using GET calls, but in

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this video we're going to dive a bit

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deeper and look at how to use parameters

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inside of API calls.

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So Postman gives you a couple of ways of

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doing this, but let's kind of dive in and

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look at a real life example. So we'll

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pull up the documentation here for the

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SpaceX API. And you can see there's a

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number of different endpoints that are

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available to us here on the left. Well

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the one we'll take a look at is the

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launches API. So this is an endpoint that

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gives us information about the different

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launches that SpaceX has had, and is

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planning in the future. So I've already

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got this open for us in Postman here, you

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can see I've got the URL in here, it's a

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GET request and down here we can see

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that it gives us back quite a big list

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of information about the various

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launches that SpaceX has done over the

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years. So this gives us a big long list

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of all the launches that have been done.

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Now if we go back to the documentation,

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we can see down here that it has a

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number of optional query strings, and

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then down here as well it has a number

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of optional output control query strings.

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So these are what we can call parameters,

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query strings is a kind of parameter. So

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you can see here's the parameter flight

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ID, and then there's a sample of what it

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might look like. And a number of

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different parameters here. So let's take

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some simple ones, let's look at limit and

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we'll put that in. So we'll go over to

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Postman, and Postman has this params tab

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here in your setup that lets us quite

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easily create this. So we'll just create

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a key called limit, and if we go back to

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the documentation it takes in an integer,

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a sample of that is three. So let's put

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an integer in, let's say two. So we put

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that in and interestingly you can see

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something going on here. So as we've

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added this key in this value here the

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URL appears changed. So instead of just

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being slash launches, it now has this

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question mark limit equals two. And so

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that's how query string parameters are

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encoded, they're encoded in the URL

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itself. And Postman

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takes care of this for us. So as we

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create these parameters it automatically

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adds them to the URL for us, and we can

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see if we delete this here. So if we

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remove this query that parameter is gone

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from here as well. And so it nicely syncs

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this up, so we can type it right back in

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here if we want, so let's do limit equals

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two. And it has added it back down here

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for us as well. So Postman gives us this

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flexibility to do it either way, and

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helps us with setting this up. So let's

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take a look at another parameter, let's

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go back here, let's do this one, we'll do

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order and we'll give it a value of

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descending DSC. So let's put in our key

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order, and our value des see. Now we can

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see that Postman again has encoded this

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into the URL for us, very handy it's

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added the and here to concatenate these

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two queries together for us, and set that

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all up. So it's quite nice the way that

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Postman handles this. So the examples

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that we've looked at up until now our

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examples of query parameters, or query

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string parameters, but there are a few

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other kinds of parameters that can be

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used in an API as well. So if we go back

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to the documentation again, and we scroll

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down let's go look at this one here, get

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one launched. And you can see here in the

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URL it's got these squiggly brackets, and

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flight number. So this flight number is

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considered to be a parameter. So this

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gives us the launch info for one

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particular flight, given that flight

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number. And so you can see here that's

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the parameter, that's the sample. So this

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is another kind of parameter, and this is

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called a path parameter. Now there's also

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a type of parameter, that's called the

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header parameter we touched on those

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already in the authorization. And in

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Postman you can create headers here,

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quite similar to the query parameters

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but these don't get encoded in this, they

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get sent as a separate header thing on

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the request that gets sent to the server.

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So the primary way that you would use

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these typically is with authorization,

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although in Postman you're probably

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going to set up your

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on the authorization tab. And then

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there's another type of parameter that

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is known as a request body parameter, we

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don't usually use those with GET

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requests but we will dig into them a bit

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more when we get to POST and PUT

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requests. So that gives you a quick

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summary of how to use parameters in an

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API. And in the next video, we're going to

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get you set up for a testing challenge.

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So we'll set you up for a find the

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secret challenge, which is a challenge

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where we will find a secret that's

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hidden in the test API, hope to see you

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there.