API: Difference between revisions

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===Web APIs===

{{Main|Web API}}

Web API'sAPIs are the defined interfaces through which interactions happen between an enterprise and applications that use its assets, which also is a [[Service-level agreement|Service Level Agreement]] (SLA) to specify the functional provider and expose the service path or URL for its API users. An API approach is an architectural approach that revolves around providing a program interface to a set of services to different applications serving different types of consumers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hcltech.com/sites/default/files/apis_for_dsi.pdf |website=www.hcltech.com |format=PDF download |title=API-fication |date=August 2014}}</ref>

When used in the context of [[Web development tools|web development]], an API is typically defined as a set of specifications, such as [[Hypertext Transfer Protocol]] (HTTP) request messages, along with a definition of the structure of response messages, usually in an Extensible Markup Language ([[XML]]) or JavaScript Object Notation ([[JSON]]) format. An example might be a shipping company API that can be added to an eCommerce-focused website to facilitate ordering shipping services and automatically include current shipping rates, without the site developer having to enter the shipper's rate table into a web database. While "web API" historically virtually has been synonymous for [[web service]], the recent trend (so-called [[Web 2.0]]) has been moving away from Simple Object Access Protocol ([[SOAP]]) based web services and [[service-oriented architecture]] (SOA) towards more direct [[representational state transfer]] (REST) style [[web resource]]s and [[resource-oriented architecture]] (ROA).<ref>