Hacker News Reader

Something like the HTTP digest authentication but non-standard, right?

I think it's still possible to have the server accept the token as a URL parameter if it's in some special debug mode. Obviously the debug mode should be implemented with great caution.

Or challenges/digests can be sent back and forth as part of data rather than in the headers. This way I can debug the REST server using HTML forms.

View on HN

In my opinion, browsers aren't a good way to test a REST interface. Browsers are good at GET, and maybe POST, but they are very limited for other HTTP verbs and can't really do much in the way of header manipulation.

A much better solution is to use a tool like curl. With curl, you can set headers, HTTP verbs (even custom ones), and, importantly, test each transaction in isolation.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com