What are APIs?

What are APIs?

If you look up the term API, you’ll probably find a number of definitions—some of which are rather difficult to understand.
But the key underlying idea is in the name—Application Programming Interface.
An API is an interface….



What are APIs?

  • If you look up the term API, you’ll probably find a number of definitions—some of which are rather difficult to understand.

  • But the key underlying idea is in the name—Application Programming Interface.

  • An API is an interface.

  • It’s something that has been created to help two different systems interact with one another.

  • A key idea to remember is that API functionality is defined independently of the actual implementation of the provider.

  • Essentially, you don’t need to understand the entirety of the application implementation in order to interact with it through the API.



Application programming interfaces APIs:

1- It doesn’t expose the implementation to those who shouldn’t have access to it.

2- The API provides a standard way of accessing the application.

3- It makes it much easier to understand how to access the application’s data.



How do APIs Work?



Client-Server Communication:

  • When you got to a bank, the bank teller acts as an intermediary or interface between you and the bank vault.

  • And this is the same type of relationship we see in client-server communication.

  • The user or client makes a request to the API server, which parses the requests, queries the database, formats a response, and then sends it back.



Here is the process listed out:

1- The client sends a request to the API server.
2- The API server parses that request.
3- Assuming the request is formatted correctly, the server queries the database for the information or performs the action in the request.
4- The server formats the response and sends it back to the client.
5- The client renders the response according to its implementation.



Internet Protocols (IPs):

  • Internet Protocol (IP) is the protocol for sending data from one computer to another across the internet.

  • Each computer must have a unique IP address that identifies it from all other computers connected to the internet.



There are many other internet protocols including:

  • Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) is used for data transmission.
  • Hypertext Transmission Protocol (HTTP) is used for transmitting text and hyperlinks.
  • File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is used to transfer files between server and client



RESTful APIs:

  • REST stands for Representational State Transfer, which is an architectural style introduced by Roy Fielding in 2000.



Here’s a short summary of the REST principles:

  • Uniform Interface: Every rest architecture must have a standardized way of accessing and processing data resources.
  • This includes unique resource identifiers (i.e., unique URLs) and self-descriptive messages in the server response that describe how to process the representation (for instance JSON vs XML) of the data resource.

  • Stateless: Every client request is self-contained in that the server doesn’t need to store any application data in order to respond to subsequent requests.

  • Client-Server: There must be both a client and server in the architecture.

  • Cacheable & Layered System: Caching and layering increase networking.



Why RESTful are stateless?

  • It might appear easier to design a server that isn’t stateless.
  • There is a reason why RESTful web servers are not allowed to remember anything about the previous requests that the user has sent.
  • In short, stateless servers make your applications scalable.

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