Why are APIs used?ĪPIs are beneficial to both the provider as well as the third party. Each endpoint has specific handles that refer to the data that can be provided at that time or for that part of the system. If you ask the waiter (API) for something that is not on the menu, your request will simply just be rejected. If there was no kitchen door, you wouldn’t be able to get your food. If we go back to the example of the restaurant, one of the endpoints in the restaurant is the kitchen door and the handle is the food that you find on the menu. These doors are called endpoints and each endpoint has a handle. APIs are used in all apps that need to collect information from servers.Ĭloud services create their own APIs, which can be used by their customers or third parties to access their platforms or databases more directly as if they were access doors. When are APIs used?Īs described before, APIs are very useful tools for developers to make their products or services communicate with others. Currently, there are nine million developers working on private APIs around the world. The information is stored in a key-value format. This format is quite simple and can be easily decoded by the most common programming languages. Most of the APIs use JSON format to carry information from one service or product to another. How are APIs built?ĪPIs can be created in different programming languages such as JavaScript, Ruby, Python, just to name a few. Likewise, developers don’t need to know how products or services are implemented to include their data in apps or to communicate with them. The customer does not need to know how everything works behind the scenes or how the dish was prepared in order to get the desired food. The cook then prepares the food and the waiter brings the dish to the customer. The customer orders off the menu and the waiter goes into the kitchen with the request. ![]() Think of APIs like waiters in a restaurant. ![]() Since this communication mainly takes place on the Web, we are specifically talking about Web-APIs, but to simplify we will just call them APIs.ĪPIs are generally provided by a company (usually a cloud service) to allow third-party developers to access the data contained within the service more directly and quickly using a few simple rules.ĪPI creators offer access points to these complex structures so that it is easier for outsiders to communicate with them. It is a tool that allows two or more services or products to communicate with each other. API stands for application programming interface.
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