Explore the API in Postman

The Norway Data API has a Postman collection: a ready-made set of requests for every endpoint, plus one for each kind of error a client can cause. Use it to try the API without writing code, or run its tests to check that the API works as documented.

You need Postman, or Node.js 18 or later to run the tests with Newman instead. No API key is needed.

Import the collection

The collection is a file in the API's GitHub repository:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cedar-ave/norway-data-api/main/collections/norway-data-api.postman_collection.json

In Postman, select Import, then paste the link. The collection appears as Norway Data API in your workspace.

What's in it

Folder	Requests
Index	Get the API index, the starting point with links to each collection
Facts	List facts, Get a random fact, and Get a fact
Categories	List categories
Places	List places and Get a place
Errors	Unknown parameter, Value not allowed, ID with leading zeros, Fact not found, and Method not allowed

Each request's description says what it shows. To try other values, change the query parameters on the request's Params tab. List facts has an offset parameter that's turned off. Select its checkbox to use it.

The requests in Errors fail on purpose. Each response is a problem details object. Its type says what kind of error it is, and its detail says what to fix. See Errors in the API reference.

Variables

The collection has two variables:

Variable	Value	Used by
baseUrl	https://api.marlasowards.com/norway-data/v1	Every request
factId	3 at first	Get a fact

Get a random fact sets factId to the ID of the fact it returns. Send it, then send Get a fact, and you get the same fact again by its ID. That's the usual way to save a fact and show it later.

Run the tests

Every request has tests. They check the status code and that any website can call the API. Some check more, such as each error's type. Run the whole collection to check every endpoint at once.

In Postman, run the collection with the Collection Runner. Run the requests in order, so Get a random fact sets factId before Get a fact uses it.

From a terminal, use Newman, Postman's command-line runner. It runs the collection straight from its link:

npx newman run https://raw.githubusercontent.com/cedar-ave/norway-data-api/main/collections/norway-data-api.postman_collection.json

Newman prints each request and test, then a summary. When everything passes, the failed column is all zeros:

┌─────────────────────────┬────────────────────┬────────────────────┐
│                         │           executed │             failed │
├─────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│              iterations │                  1 │                  0 │
├─────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│                requests │                 12 │                  0 │
├─────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│            test-scripts │                 24 │                  0 │
├─────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│      prerequest-scripts │                  0 │                  0 │
├─────────────────────────┼────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│              assertions │                 41 │                  0 │
└─────────────────────────┴────────────────────┴────────────────────┘

A run makes 12 requests, well under the rate limit of 60 per minute.

Tips

• Import the OpenAPI spec instead, for every parameter. Postman can also import the API's OpenAPI spec from its link. That gives you a request for each endpoint with every parameter, but no tests and no requests that cause errors.
• Use the API index to explore. Get the API index returns a link to each collection. Copy one into a new request to follow it.
• Get a fact's places. Copy an ID from a fact's placeIds into Get a place, in place of sognefjord.

How this page was tested

The collection was run with Newman 6.2.3 against the live API, and every test passed. The steps in the Postman app weren't tested automatically.

Related

• Show a random fact with its places, the same requests in JavaScript and Python
• Handle errors and retries
• Endpoints at a glance in the API reference

Feedback

Was something unclear, wrong, or missing? Open a docs feedback issue on GitHub. The page's address is filled in for you.