The Cisco NX-API Developer Sandbox is a web form hosted on the switch. It translates NX-OS CLI commands into equivalent XML or JSON payloads and converts NX-API REST payloads into their CLI equivalents. The web form is a single screen with three panes—Command (top pane), Request (bottom-left pane), and Response (bottom-right pane)—as shown in Figure 16-5.

Figure 16-5 NX-API Sandbox GUI

The Request pane also has a series of tabs. Each tab represents a different language: Python, Java, and JavaScript. Each tab enables you to view the request in the respective language. For example, after converting CLI commands into an XML or JSON payload, click the Python tab to view the request in Python, which you can use to create scripts.

Controls in the Command pane enable you to choose a supported command type, such as cli_show, cli_show_ascii, cli_conf, and a message format, such as XML or JSON. The available options vary depending on the chosen method.

When you type or paste one or more CLI commands into the Command pane, the web form converts the commands into a REST API payload, checking for configuration errors, and displays the resulting payload in the Request pane. If you then choose to post the payload directly from the sandbox to the switch (by choosing the POST option), the Response pane displays the API response.

Exam Preparation Tasks

As mentioned in the section “How to Use This Book” in the Introduction, you have a couple of choices for exam preparation: the exercises here, Chapter 21, “Final Preparation,” and the exam simulation questions in the Pearson Test Prep software online.