What is REST?

REpresentational – representation of resource

State – representational state, changes all the time

Transfer

What is API?

Application Programming Interface – collection of useful methods/functions

Used for implementing in applications (e. g. Post on Twitter using API POST)

How it works in Http(hyper text transfer protocol)

  • 💻 Client/application — REQUEST (e. g. Click on a link, type a URL) –> 🖥web server
  • 💻 Client/application <– RESPONSE (representation of resource) — ðŸ–¥web server
    • Representation e.g. : JSON, image, html, xml
    • Resource e.g. : REST, xml-RPC, SOAP, JSON, serialized PHP

Request

REST API URL + API method + parameters

Request example In URL (uniform resource locator) form

protocol(e. g. Https)/host(e.g. abc.com)/path to the resource (/img/lily.jpg. Or lily.html etc.)

→  https://abc.com/img/lily.jpg

Request type

  • GET: click on something
  • POST: submit something/submit data (e.g. send info via click for subscription), add a child resource under resources collection. Use for CREATE operations.
  • PUT : submit something/submit data. Modify a singular resource that is already a part of resources collection. Calling the same PUT request multiple times will always produce the same result. Use for UPDATE operations.
  • DELETE: delete the resource
  • Helpful info
    1. https://restfulapi.net/rest-put-vs-post

Related Terms

OAuth

  • an open standard for access delegation, commonly used as a way for Internet users to grant websites or applications access to their information on other websites but without giving them the passwords.
  • e. g: send token inside of http header, as a parameter in the URI, combining with client id/secret etc. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-BpqyOT3a8; 12:40)
  • e.g. register a new OAuth to get access to github API

Pagination

  • also known as paging, is the process of dividing a document into discrete pages, either electronic pages or printed pages. (e.g. 100 items per page)

cURL (Client URL)

  • tools to transfer data using various protocols including httpEndpointone end of a communication channel, an endpoint can include a URL of a server or service with a domain, port, e path, and/or querystring
  • e.g. https://abc.com/img/lily.jpg

Tools

Helpful Info