GET for reading resources in Rest API - Practice Problems & Coding Challenges

Challenge - 5 Problems

❓ Predict Output

intermediate

What is the output of this GET request example?

Consider this simple REST API GET request example using curl:

curl -X GET https://api.example.com/users/123

The server responds with JSON data about the user. What is the expected output if the user exists?

Rest API

{"id":123,"name":"Alice","email":"[e-mail]"}

A {"error":"User not found"}

B 404 Not Found

C {"id":123,"name":"Alice","email":"[e-mail]"}

D 500 Internal Server Error

💡 Hint

GET requests for existing resources usually return status 200 and the resource data.

A successful GET request returns status 200 and the requested resource in JSON format.

🧠 Conceptual

intermediate

Which HTTP status code indicates a successful GET request with no content?

When a GET request is successful but the server has no data to return, which HTTP status code is appropriate?

A 204 No Content

B 200 OK

C 404 Not Found

D 500 Internal Server Error

💡 Hint

Think about a success status that means 'no data' instead of 'data returned'.

204 No Content means the request was successful but there is no content to send back.

🔧 Debug

advanced

Why does this GET request code cause an error?

Look at this Python code snippet using requests library to GET a resource:

import requests
response = requests.get('https://api.example.com/items')
print(response.json()['data'])

The server returns JSON: {"items": [1,2,3]}. What error occurs and why?

A TypeError because response.json() returns a string, not a dict

B No error, prints [1,2,3]

C ConnectionError because the URL is invalid

D KeyError because 'data' key does not exist in the JSON response

💡 Hint

Check the keys in the JSON response and what the code tries to access.

The JSON response has key 'items', but code tries to access 'data', causing KeyError.

📝 Syntax

advanced

Which option correctly forms a GET request URL with query parameters?

You want to GET a list of products filtered by category 'books' and sorted by price ascending. Which URL is correct?

A https://api.example.com/products?category=books&sort=price_asc

B https://api.example.com/products/category=books&sort=price_asc

C https://api.example.com/products?category=books;sort=price_asc

D https://api.example.com/products?category=books&sort=price-asc

💡 Hint

Query parameters start after '?' and are separated by '&'.

Option A correctly uses '?' to start query and '&' to separate parameters.

🚀 Application

expert

What is the number of items returned by this GET request code?

Given this JavaScript fetch code:

const response = await fetch('https://api.example.com/tasks');
const data = await response.json();
console.log(data.tasks.length);

The server responds with JSON:

{"tasks": [{"id":1},{"id":2},{"id":3},{"id":4}]}

What is the output of the console.log statement?

A undefined

B 4

C 3

D TypeError

💡 Hint

Count the number of objects inside the 'tasks' array in the JSON response.

The 'tasks' array has 4 objects, so length is 4.