2. Types of APIs: RESTful APIs

Learning Objectives Define REST and its role as an architectural style for APIs. Identify the key components of a RESTful API request: the endpoint, HTTP method, and headers. Differentiate between the four most common HTTP methods: GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. Explain the structure and purpose of JSON as a data format for API communication. Construct a simple GET request URL to retrieve data from a specified endpoint. Interpret a simple JSON response to extract specific pieces of information. Ever wonder how your weather app instantly knows the temperature, or how a game displays your friend's high score? 🤔 Let's pull back the curtain on the magic that makes it happen! This lesson introduces RESTful APIs, the most common type of API used on the web. You'll le...

TermDefinitionExample REST (REpresentational State Transfer)An architectural style, or a set of rules, for designing networked applications. It's not a language, but a guide that makes communication between a client (like your browser) and a server (where data is stored) simple and standardized.Think of it like the standardized layout of a library. You know where to find the fiction section, the non-fiction section, and the front desk, making it easy to navigate and find what you need. ResourceAny piece of information that an API can provide. In Object-Oriented Programming terms, you can think of a resource as an object or a collection of objects.In a social media API, a 'user', a 'post', or a 'comment' would each be a resource. A specific user like `use...

RESTful URL Structure Base URL + API Version + Resource Name RESTful URLs are designed to be predictable. They start with the base address of the server, often include a version number (like /v1/), and end with the plural name of the resource you want to access. HTTP Method Usage GET: Read | POST: Create | PUT: Update | DELETE: Remove This pattern, often called CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete), maps directly to HTTP methods. Always choose the method that semantically matches the action you want to perform on the resource. JSON Syntax Data is in key-value pairs. Keys are strings in double quotes. Values can be strings, numbers, booleans, arrays, or other objects. When sending data (e.g., with POST or PUT) or receiving data, it must be formatted as valid JSON. A sin...