This abbreviation means Application Programming Interface. Usually, API represents a set of convenient functions that allow access to any service, send and receive data.
The classic API example is Google Maps: almost any programmer or webmaster can interact with Google Maps through their convenient and clean API functions provided for free.
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What is REST?
If you have the same questions, then you have come to the right place – we have all the answers.
REST API is an abbreviation that means Representational State Transfer. This is the style of designing distributed systems with the help of restrictions. The central abstraction of REST is a resource. And the main restrictions are as follows:
- Client-server model
- Interaction without saving the current state of the system
- Logical interface
You still can not guess what that means? Just want to make your API RESTful? To understand what that all means, let’s recall the basic concepts of the World Wide Web.
Client-server
What happens when you type google.com in your browser’s address bar?
In brief, your browser (client) sends a GET request to the server. The server accepts the request and sends the response. The browser accepts it and displays the received information.
In a client-server model, the server provides a service or resources that customers receive when they complete queries. In addition, the client can be anything: an Android application, a browser or even an ATM. If you have a single machine-server model, that’s enough, and clients in the meantime may be quite different.
What Is The Best Way To Work With Ani API?
When it comes to API testing, there is no better way to have a special program for it on your computer. Because most developers use Mac on a daily basis, we highly recommend using Paw as a perfect app for working with various APIs and data sets and here is why:
- It has a clean interface that would simplify interaction with any API you may use or test. All imported SSL certificates are kept in an encrypted way. Same thing with private keys and any other private data.
- High-end security is another advantage of Paw. Because of the enhanced security features, you don’t have to worry that your data can be compromised or stolen.
- It has a built-in SSL client certificates feature that enables you to work with services that require you to authenticate with a certificate.
Interaction Without Saving the State
In the REST architecture, the server should not store any information about the state of the operation. The client application must keep sessions. This means that if the server receives two different requests from one client application, they should not affect each other. Because of this, all the information needed to carry out the action must be sent by the client application immediately to avoid problems.
This approach saves a lot of time and resources for any system and makes it easier to scale the server when your application or service faces more significant load.
What is a Resource?
A resource is sort of a virtual object. It could be an image or video file, a real object (client), or a collection of objects. In general, the resource can be anything, the API developer decides he wants to be a resource.
Let’s imagine that you are writing a RESTful API for a chain of stores selling pajamas. In this case, the pajamas, customers, employees, sales managers, can serve as a resource.
In REST, each resource must be unique. Therefore, we will assign an ID to every one of them. Soft of the following structure: /store/1 and /store/2 – two different stores with ID 1 and 2.
Also, resources can be embedded. For example, the URI of Manager 2 in the second store will look like this /store/2/manager/2.
In this article, we wanted to give you a few insights on the difference between simple API and REST API. Hope this guide will help you understand the basics of REST API and create advanced apps and services capable of working with massive sets of data and users. With the help of this approach, modern services can exchange data while lowering the need for extra hardware and bandwidth. This also helps to make many interactions between various system a clean and cost-effective process in terms of time needed for integration.
