• Simplicity and clarity: based on simple and clear principles such as HTTP methods and URLs.
• HTTP universality: uses the HTTP protocol, which is widely used and supported by all modern platforms.
• Flexibility of data formats: various data formats such as JSON and XML are used.
• Openness and standardization: anyone can use it without restrictions. This facilitates the creation of standardized and reusable solutions.
• Support for caching: This helps to improve application performance and reduce server load.
• Easy to debug and test.
• Scalability: you can scale the server infrastructure horizontally by adding new servers as the load increases, without changing the API interface for clients.
• Independence: allows you to separate client and server logic. This means that the client and server can be developed and maintained independently of each other. For example, you can update the client side of the application without changing the server and vice versa. This makes it easier to maintain and update applications.

One of the key principles of the REST API is the separation of client and server parts. This means that the client and server can be developed and maintained independently of each other.

This separation brings several advantages:

• Improved performance: Client and server code can be optimized independently for better performance. For example, the client can cache data and the server can optimize the database.
• Improved security: Separating the client and server allows for better security management. The server can have stricter data access rules, while the client can control authentication and authorization.
• Easy to maintain: the client and server can be maintained independently, making it easier and safer to maintain and update applications.

All these advantages make REST APIs an attractive choice for developers who want to create flexible, scalable, and independent web applications. This approach contributes to the development of high-performance and reliable systems.

It’s not just a set of technical rules, it’s a standard that allows us to build applications and web services that can interact with each other using the HTTP protocol.

The importance of this technology becomes obvious when we talk about modern development. After all, the REST API provides us with a standardized interaction between clients and servers, which makes it easier to integrate various applications and services. It is also used in a variety of modern services and applications. With its help, we can integrate various services and access a rich ecosystem.

In the future, REST APIs will remain relevant. With the growth of microservice architecture, the increasing number of IoT devices, and improved security practices, REST APIs will continue to play a key role in the development world.

So, understanding and knowing how to use REST APIs correctly remains an important skill for developers, and we can say that it is an integral part of modern software development.

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A status string

The status string contains a three-digit status code that indicates whether the request was successful or unsuccessful. For example, 2XX codes indicate successful execution, while 4XX and 5XX codes indicate errors. 3XX codes indicate a URL redirection.

The following are some common status codes:

200: general successful execution response
201: POST method success response
400: Invalid request that the server cannot process
404: resource not found

Message Text

The response text contains a representation of the resource. The server selects the appropriate presentation format based on the content of the request headers. Clients can request information in XML or JSON formats: they define the data record as plain text. For example, if a client requests the name and age of a person named John, the server returns a JSON representation in the following format:

‘{“name”: “John”, “age”:30}’.

Headers

The response also contains headers or metadata about the response. These give more context to the response and include information such as server name, encoding, date, and content type.

How can AWS help manage RESTful APIs?

Amazon API Gateway is a fully managed service for developers to create, publish, maintain, monitor, and secure APIs at any scale. API Gateway allows you to create RESTful APIs for real-time two-way communication applications.

With the Gateway API, you can:

Provide users with high performance for API requests and responses.
Enable API access using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Amazon Cognito, which provide native OAuth support.
Run multiple versions of the same API at the same time using API Gateway, allowing you to quickly refine, test, and launch new versions.
Track performance metrics and information about API requests, data latency, and error rates from API Gateway.

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The RESTful API supports four common authentication methods:

HTTP authentication

HTTP defines some authentication schemes that can be used when implementing the RESTful API. Two such schemes are summarized below:

Basic authentication

In basic authentication, the client sends a username and password in the request header. It encodes them using the base64 encoding method, which converts the username-password pair into a 64-character set for secure transmission.

Media Authentication

Media authentication is the process of granting access control to the bearer token. Typically, the bearer token is an encrypted string of characters that the server generates in response to a login request. The client sends the token in the request headers to access resources.

API keys

API keys are another option for REST API authentication. In this approach, the server generates a unique value and assigns it to the first client. Whenever the client tries to access resources, it uses the unique API key for verification. API keys are less secure: since the client must hand over the key, the likelihood of the key being stolen increases.

OAuth

OAuth combines passwords and tokens to securely log into any system. The server first requests a password and then an additional token to complete the authorization process. It can validate the token at any time as well as after a certain period of time according to the scope and expiration date.

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A unique resource identifier

The server assigns each resource a unique resource identifier. In the case of REST services, the server identifies resources using a universal resource locator (URL). A URL specifies the path to a resource. A URL is similar to a Web site address that you enter in a browser to visit a Web page. The URL is also called the request address and clearly tells the server what the client requires.

Method

Typically, developers implement a RESTful API using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The HTTP method tells the server what it needs to do with the resource. Below are four common HTTP methods:

GET

Clients use GET to access resources located on the server at a specified URL. They can cache GET requests and send parameters in the RESTful API request to tell the server to filter the data before sending it.

POST

Clients use POST to send data to the server. In doing so, they include data views in the request. Sending the same POST request multiple times has the side effect of creating the same resource multiple times.

PUT

Clients use PUT to update existing resources on the server. Unlike POST, sending the same PUT request multiple times produces the same result in a RESTful web service.

DELETE

Clients use a DELETE request to delete a resource. A DELETE request can change the state of the server. However, if the user does not have proper authentication, the request fails.

HTTP Headers

Request headers are metadata exchanged between the client and server. For example, a request header specifies the format of the request and response, provides information about the status of the request, and so on.

Data

REST API requests can include data for successful operation of POST, PUT and other HTTP methods.

Parameters

RESTful API requests can include parameters that provide the server with more detailed information about the required actions. The following are some types of parameters:

• Path parameters, which define the details of the URL;
• Query parameters that request additional information about the resource;
• Cookie parameters that quickly authenticate clients.

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Scalability

Systems implementing the REST API can scale efficiently by optimizing server-client communication over REST. The lack of state saving relieves the server of the burden: the server does not need to save information about previous client requests. Fine-tuned caching partially or completely eliminates some client-server interactions. The above features assume scalability and do not limit bandwidth, which can lead to performance degradation.

Flexibility

RESTful web services support complete separation of client and server. They simplify and separate the various server components so that each part can evolve independently. Changes to the platform or technology in the server application do not affect the client application. The ability to separate application functions into tiers further increases flexibility. For example, developers can make changes to the database tier without rewriting the application logic.

Independence

The REST API is independent of the technology you use. You can create both client and server applications in different programming languages without affecting the API structure. You can also change the underlying technology on either side without affecting data exchange.

How does the RESTful API work?

The basic principle of the RESTful API is the same as on the Internet. A client communicates with a server using API when it needs some resource. Developers describe the principle of using REST API by the client in the API documentation of the server application. The following are the basic steps of a REST API request:

• The client sends a request to the server. Guided by the API documentation, the client formats the request so that it can be understood by the server;
• The server authenticates the client and confirms that the client is authorized to make this request;
• The server receives the request and internally processes it;
• The server returns a response to the client. The response contains information that tells the client whether the request was successful. The request also includes the information requested by the client.

The request and response information of a REST API can vary slightly depending on how developers design the API.

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What is an API?

An application programming interface (API) defines the rules that must be followed to communicate with other software systems. Developers implement or create APIs so that other applications can programmatically interact with their applications. For example, a timesheet application contains an API that requests the employee’s full name and date range. Upon receiving this information, the interface internally processes the employee’s timesheet and returns the number of hours worked during the specified period.

In this way, the network API functions as a gateway between clients and resources on the Internet.

Clients

Clients are users who want to access information on the Internet. A client can be a person or a software system that uses an API. For example, developers can create programs that access weather data from a weather system. You can also access this data from a browser by visiting a website with weather information.

Resources

Resources are the information that different applications provide to their clients. Resources can be images, videos, text, numbers, or any type of data. A computer that provides resources to a client is also called a server. APIs allow organizations to share resources and provide web services by providing security, control, and authentication. In addition, APIs help determine which clients can access certain internal resources.

What is REST?

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a software architecture that defines the environment in which an API operates. REST was originally created as a guideline for managing interactions on a complex network such as the Internet. A REST-based architecture can be used to support high-performance and reliable communication at the scale required. It can be easily implemented and modified, providing transparency and cross-platform portability to any API system.

Developers can create APIs using multiple architectures. APIs that conform to the REST architectural style are called REST APIs. Web services that implement the REST architecture are called RESTful web services. Generally, the term RESTful APIs refers to network-based RESTful APIs. However, REST API and RESTful API are interchangeable terms.

The following are some principles of the REST architectural style:

Unified Interface

A unified interface is the structural foundation of any RESTful web service. It indicates that the server communicates information in a standardized format. The formatted resource in REST is called a representation. This format may differ from the internal representation of the resource in the server application. For example, a server may store data as text but send it in an HTML representation format.

A single interface imposes four architectural constraints:

• Queries must identify resources. This is accomplished through a single resource identifier.
• Clients have enough information in the resource representation to modify or delete the resource if desired. The server fulfills this condition by sending metadata that further describes the resource.
• Clients receive information about further processing of the views. The server implements this by sending descriptive messages that contain metadata about how the client can make optimal use of them.
• Clients receive information about all related resources needed to accomplish the task. The server implements this by sending hyperlinks in the view so that clients can dynamically discover more resources.

Lack of state persistence

In the REST architecture, no state persistence refers to a communication method in which the server executes each client request independently of all previous requests. Clients can request resources in any order, and each request is either isolated from other requests or its state is not preserved. This design limitation of the REST API implies that the server can fully understand and fulfill the request each time.

Tiered system

In a tiered system architecture, a client can connect to other authorized intermediaries between the client and server and still receive responses from the server. Servers can also pass requests to other servers. You can design your RESTful Web service to run on multiple servers with multiple layers (security, application, and business logic) sharing client requests. These layers remain invisible to the client.

Cache Capacity

RESTful web services support caching, which is the process of storing some responses on the client or on an intermediary to reduce server response time. For example, you visit a Web site with generic header and footer images on each page. Each time you visit a new page of the website, the server must resend the same images. To avoid this, the client caches or stores these images after the first response and then uses the images from the cache. RESTful web services manage caching by using API responses that define themselves as cacheable or non-cacheable.

Code on Demand

In an architectural style, REST servers can temporarily extend or customize client functionality by passing software code. For example, when you fill out a registration form on a website, your browser will immediately highlight any errors made (such as incorrect phone numbers). This happens thanks to the code sent by the server.

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