Objective
This article outlines how to use the Paradigm API to perform specific tasks through a series of sample POSTMAN commands.
Complexity: EXPERT
Be Advised
The Paradigm API examples calls may be viewed in the format of a Postman Collection available via this link: https://documenter.getpostman.com/view/541303/TVRpz4qD
Advanced programmers that are familiar with connecting to APIs are welcome to dive straight in using the postman documentation for reference.
Getting started
When reading the documentation you’ll notice contents such as {{apiUser}} , these will need to be populated with values that would exist only on your Paradigm system. If you are making use of Postman to test call executions, this is how Postman represents environment variables.
Common Variables
Variable Name | Description | Example Content |
|---|---|---|
apiUser | This is the username of the user you wish to use the API with. |
|
apiPw | The password for the user |
|
host | The hostname of your site | https://abc.edu.net.au |
Logging In
You will need to set the HTTP Authorization header as “Basic {{encodedPassString}}”
The encoded pass string is your username:password encoded in base64.
Do not use online tools to generate your base64 encoded logins. This introduces a HEAVY security risk in sharing with not only the site, but any other software on your system that might intercept the header.
On Windows you can do this in PowerShell:
powershell "[convert]::ToBase64String([Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes(\"username:password\"))"
Just replace username and password with the values you want to set.
If you are using Linux :
echo 'username:password' | base64
Example Requests
In the top menu you have the option to select the LANGUAGE - as in the programming language or method that you will be using to connect to the API.
By default this is curl:
curl --location -g --request GET 'https://host/api/rest/EduNoteData/?partyId={{sampleStudentPartyId}}' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json'