How to configure hosts in Postman?
Unified configuration through environment variables facilitates easy switching between development, testing, or production environments.Adding host variables in the environment avoids manually modifying the prefix URL for each request.
Configuring hosts in Postman primarily serves the purpose of setting the server address to which API requests will be sent. The host may need to correspond to different server addresses for development, testing, or production environments. Therefore, configuring them through host variables helps maintain consistency, eliminating the need to manually change the API endpoint URLs when switching environments.
In essence, if you want to configure a unified host for an entire collection or environment, you can utilize Postman's environment variable feature. Below are the steps to configure hosts in Postman:
1.Configure Host
Open a project in Postman, click on "Environments" on the left side, then choose to create a new "Environment" and name it "Test Environment." In the environment editing interface, you can add key-value pairs to define your environment variables. Enter "host" or any other variable name under the "Variable" column and input your API base URL under the "Initial Value" and "Current Value" columns. For example:
Variable | Initial Value | Current Value |
host | https://example.com | https://example.com |
At this point, you have configured a host, and we'll now discuss how to use it.
2.Use Host
Click on "Collections" on the left side, within the Collection, click on "Add Request" to create a new request or select an existing one. In the request editing interface, in the URL input box, enter the base URL of the request, and you can use variables to replace hardcoded URLs. For example:
Original URL:
https://zguyun.com/blog
After using the host:
{{host}}/blog
Remember to switch the environment in the top right corner to ensure that you select the environment you just created or edited from the "Environments" dropdown menu to make the environment variables effective. When you send the request, Postman will resolve {{host}}
to the actual backend address.
The above is a graphical tutorial on configuring hosts in Postman. Using environment variables enables easy switching between different development, testing, and production environments simply by changing the environment configuration, eliminating the need to manually change the URL in each request.
Conclusion
In summary, configuring hosts in Postman is primarily for setting the target server address for API requests. Unified configuration through environment variables facilitates easy switching between development, testing, or production environments. Adding host variables in the environment avoids manually modifying the prefix URL for each request. In conclusion, switching between different environments using environment variables avoids manual modification of request URLs, thereby improving efficiency.
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