Gabbi 1.13.0 has been released with additional JSONPath features.

Gabbi is a tool for writing tests of HTTP APIs in a declarative style using a YAML-based format. It is primarily oriented towards JSON-based APIs, using JSONPath to validate and inspect responses.

If we have an API that returns a JSON response that looks like this:

{"pets": {
    "cat": {
        "sound": "meow",
    },
    "dog": {
        "sound": "woof",
    }
}

then a gabbi test for that API might look like this:

tests:
    - name: get pets
      GET: /pets
      response_headers:
          content-type: application/json
      response_json_paths:
          $.pets.cat.sound: meow
          $.pets.dog.sound: woof

This form has always worked in gabbi. However when the JSON is structured like this:

{"pets": [
    {"type": "cat", "sound": "meow"},
    {"type": "dog", "sound": "woof"}
]}

where the contents of the pets list is in an unpredictable order, gabbi struggles: Until 1.13.0 gabbi could neither sort nor filter in a JSONPath statement.

Now it can. These tests will now work, given the data above:

tests:
    - name: get pets
      GET: /pets
      response_headers:
          content-type: application/json
      response_json_paths:
          # sort by type
          $.pets[/type][0].sound: meow
          # sort by type, reversed
          $.pets[\type][0].sound: woof
          # all the sounds
          $.pets[/type]..sound: ['meow', 'woof']
          # filter by type = dog
          $.pets[?type = "dog"].sound: woof

These features are necessary because JSON APIs love nested anonymous objects within a list, despite the fact that this makes it harder to extract a single piece of information.