Explaining REST APIs with visuals and details.

REST API is a word you might’ve heard so many times if you are a programmer, more specifically a web developer. But, what exactly is it? We are going to be looking at fundamental concepts of a REST API in this blog.

What is an API?

An application program interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. Basically, it allows applications (webpages, softwares, etc)to communicate with each other.

API serves as a medium for a webpage to send a ‘request’ for certain data and consequently for the server to return the ‘response’ i.e the requested data from the database. Read that again.

How API works. Source:  Medium

Now, what is a REST API?

It stands for “Representational State Transfer”.

The first thing to understand is that API is the superset while REST API is the subset. While API is a broad term, REST API is a specialization. It is a set of rules or guidelines to build a web API. There are many ways to build a web API, and REST is a standard way that will help in building it faster and also for third parties to understand it better. The working of REST API essentially revolves around two fundamental functions.

• Sending a request from the client to the server.
• Receiving a response from the server and delivering it to the client.

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