GET all the todos in default format

By Alan RichardsonPublished 2021-05-29

How to complete the challenge GET /api/todos ANY (200) to successfully GET all the todos in default format.

GET /api/todos ANY (200)

Issue a GET request on the /api/todos end point with an Accept header of */* to receive results in Default format

GET request will receive a response with all the todo items
- e.g. GET /api/todos to get all the todo items
200 is a success code, in this case it means the end point exists and the todo items were returned
Accept means that an Accept header was added to specify that the todos should be returned in ANY format i.e. the default from the server
add the X-CHALLENGER header to track progress

Basic Instructions

Issue a GET request to end point "/api/todos"
- if running locally that endpoint would be
  - https://apichallenges.com/api/todos
The request should have an Accept header specifying ANY format by using a value of */*, our application defaults to JSON
The request should have an X-CHALLENGER header to track challenge completion
The response status code should be 200 when all the details are valid.
Check the body of the message has JSON format data, which is the default from the server
Check the content-type header in the response has application/json

Try it now

GET /api/todos with Accept: */* to request any supported format

Example Request

> GET /api/todos HTTP/1.1
> Host: apichallenges.com
> User-Agent: insomnia/2021.2.2
> X-CHALLENGER: x-challenger-guid
> Accept: */*

Example Response

< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Connection: close
< Date: Sat, 29 May 2021 09:06:15 GMT
< Content-Type: application/json
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< Access-Control-Allow-Headers: *
< X-Challenger: x-challenger-guid
< Server: Jetty(9.4.z-SNAPSHOT)
< Via: 1.1 vegur

Example Response body:

{
  "todos": [
    {
      "id": 235,
      "title": "pay invoices",
      "doneStatus": false,
      "description": ""
    },
    {
      "id": 239,
      "title": "tidy meeting room",
      "doneStatus": false,
      "description": ""
    }
  ]
}

Overview Video

Watch on YouTube: "Solution to Get all Todos in default format"

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Lessons Learned

*/* in Accept says the client has no format preference, so the server default becomes part of the behavior under test.
A 200 OK response with wildcard negotiation still needs a Content-Type check because the requested format was deliberately broad.
This challenge is useful for finding the API fallback representation before writing stricter Accept tests.

Suggested Experiments

Send Accept: */*, then remove the Accept header entirely and compare the selected Content-Type.
Send Accept: image/png and confirm the API reports negotiation failure instead of silently returning JSON.

Experiment with this endpoint