Invoke an API¶
Once you subscribe to an API via the API Store of WSO2 API Cloud, you can generate an OAuth token for the application that you used to subscribe to the API and then go ahead and invoke the API.
Follow the instructions below try out invoking an API that you have subscribed to:
Before you begin,
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Subscribe to an API if you have not done so already. For detailed instructions on subscribing to an API, see Subscribe to an API.
Note
Since the API Store runs on HTTPS, you can only try out HTTPS based APIs via the API Console.
Let's get started!
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Sign in to the API Store with your credentials.
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Click Applications. This lists all the applications you have created.
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Click view to open details of the application that you used to subscribe to the API.
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Click the Production Keys tab and then click Generate keys.
By default the Client Credentials grant type will be used to generate access token. Make sure the Client Credentials grant type is selected when generating keys from the UI.
Tip
You can set a token validity period in the given text box. By default, it is set to one hour (3600 seconds). If you set a negative value (e.g., -1), the token will never expire.
However, this non-expiring token too can be revoked in some situations such as changing user password, changing the client secret, calling the token revoke api, authorization service provider detects that the tokens are compromised due to a security breach etc.
Hence,
- It is not recommended to hard-code such access tokens in client's applications on any production environment to communicate with the API Manager.
- You should use the recommended methods of obtaining the token by using the relevant grant type.
- Hard coding the token needs to be done with caution and if doing so, the application needs to be provisioned to get a new token in case the current hard-coded token is invalidated by the system.
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After the keys are generated, click the APIs menu in the API Store and then click the API that you want to invoke.
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When the API opens, click its API Console tab.
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Expand the GET method, specify values for the required parameters, and then click Try it Out. You can specify the following sample details to invoke the API:
PhoneNumber E.g., 18006785432 LicenseKey Give 0 for testing purpose Authorization The API console is automatically populated by the access token that you generated in step 6 after subscribing to the API. The token is prefixed by the string "Bearer" as per the OAuth bearer token profile. OAuth security is enforced on all published APIs. If the application key is invalid, you get a 401 Unauthorized response in return.
Base URL Appears at the bottom of the console. Using the base URL and the parameters, the system creates the API URL.
Note
If you cannot invoke the API's HTTPS endpoint (causes the SSLPeerUnverified exception ), it could be because the security certificate issued by the server is not trusted by your browser. To resolve this issue, access the HTTPS endpoint directly from your browser and accept the security certificate.
Note the response for the API invocation. As we used a valid phone number in this example, the response is valid.
Now you have successfully invoked the API using the Swagger API console.
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