API: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:33, 29 August 2019

Revision as of 11:01, 2 September 2019

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===Web APIs===

{{Main|Web API}}

Web APIsAPI's 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>

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In the social media space, web APIs have allowed web communities to facilitate sharing content and data between communities and applications. In this way, content that is created in one place dynamically can be posted and updated to multiple locations on the web.<ref name="Parr16">{{cite web|last1=Parr|first1=Ben|title=The Evolution of the Social Media API|url=http://mashable.com/2009/05/21/social-media-api/|website=Mashable|accessdate=26 July 2016}}

</ref> For example, Twitter's REST API allows developers to access core Twitter data and the Search API provides methods for developers to interact with Twitter Search and trends data.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}

==Design==