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What is API?
API is referred to Application Programming Interface. It is a
set of methods of communication between various software components.
Example: API
for an object-oriented language such as Java provides a
specification of classes and their methods.
An API in web development is a set of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request messages, along with a definition
of the structure of response messages, which is usually in an Extensible Markup
Language (XML) or JavaScript Object
Notation (JSON) format.
What is API used for?
An API (Application Programming Interface) is how third parties can write code that interfaces with other code and Web Service is a type of API, one that operates over HTTP.
An API facilitates
communication between two different software systems. More
specifically APIs is often used to communicate between libraries, operating
systems and software applications, and an API is much like a software library. APIs classification on the bases of the way we use
them. Some of the popular API Examples:
- YouTube API
- Twitter API
- Google Map API
- Flicker API
Types of
API
Libraries and frameworks
- An API is related to a software library. An API for a procedural language is a set
of basic routines to execute code, manipulate data or handle errors,
while an API for an object-oriented language such as Java would provide a specification of classes
and their class methods.
- Language bindings are also APIs. These APIs maps the features and capabilities
of one language to an interface implemented in another language.
- An API can also be a software
framework.
Web APIs
Web APIs are those interfaces through
which allow interactions between an enterprise and applications that use its
assets. Web API is defined as a set of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
request messages, along with a definition of the structure of response
messages, which is usually in an Extensible Markup Language (XML) or JavaScript
Object Notation (JSON) format.
Making use of web APIs, web communities
have been able to share content and data between several communities and
different applications. Thus content created at one place can be dynamically
posted multiple locations on the web.
Remote APIs
Remote APIs are often used by
developers to manipulate remote resources through protocols. For example, Java
remote method invocation API uses the Java Remote Method Protocol to allow
invocation of functions that operate remotely but appear local to the developer.
Remote APIs maintain the object abstraction in object-oriented programming; a
method call, executed locally on a proxy object, invokes the corresponding
method on the remote object, using the remoting protocol, and acquires the
result to be used locally as the return value.
Operating systems API
An API can specify the interface
between an application and the operating system. An API is different from
an application binary interface (ABI), an API is source code-based
while an ABI is binary based.
SOAP
SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) is
a protocol specification. SOAP is used for exchanging structured information in
the implementation of web services in computer networks. SOAP uses XML for its
message format, and it mostly dependent on application layer protocols, like
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) or Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), for
message negotiation and transmission.
SOAP enables processes running on
different operating systems (such as Windows and Linux) to communicate using
Extensible Markup Language (XML). Web protocols like HTTP are installed on all
operating systems therefore SOAP allows clients to invoke web services and
receive responses independent of language and platforms.
SOAP has the following major
characteristics:
- Extensibility (security and WS-Addressing are among the
extensions under development)
- Neutrality (SOAP can operate over any protocol such as
HTTP, SMTP, TCP, UDP, or JMS)
- Independence (SOAP allows for any programming model)
REST
Representational state transfer (REST)
or RESTful Web services provide interoperability between computer systems on
the Internet. RESTful Web services allow requesting systems to access and
manipulate textual representations of Web resources using a uniform and
predefined set of stateless operations. Other forms of Web service exist, which
expose their own arbitrary sets of operations such as WSDL and SOAP.
In a RESTful Web
service, requests made to a resource's URI will fetch a
response that can be in XML, HTML, JSON. Using HTTP, as is most common, the kind of operations available
include those predefined by the HTTP verbs GET, POST, PUT, DELETE and so on. REST systems have fast
performance, reliability, and the ability to grow, by re-using components that
can be managed and updated without affecting the system as a whole.
RESTful Web services have the following major
characteristics :
- Base URL, such as https://richasd.blogspot.in/p/java_29.html
- An internet media type that defines state transition
data elements (e.g., Atom, micro formats,
application/vnd.collection+json,[14]:91–99 etc.) The current
representation tells the client how to compose requests for transitions to
all the next available application states. This could be a URL.
- Standard HTTP methods (e.g., OPTIONS, GET, PUT, POST,
and DELETE