Building a fully functional REST API from the ground up is a large project for any developer, and even more challenging for IT professionals unfamiliar with the nuances of how APIs are coded, deployed, and maintained. A low-code development tool can lighten your load and deal with most of the complexity for you, leaving you with only needing a basic understanding of how API’s work.
So How do API’s Work?
There are a couple of basic, but important concepts that form the basis of an understanding of APIs. To get us started, let’s look at these:
- Endpoints
- Authentication
- Requests
- Responses
In a nutshell, it all comes together like this;
To work with (“consume”) an API, an application (also referred to as ‘client’) must send a request message that indicates what the application wants to do (e.g. GET or POST specific details) to an API endpoint. The application will be authenticated before a successful connection can be established. Once the connection is established, and the request message is processed, the application will receive a response message.
#api #rest api #restful api #restful web api
