Application Programming Interface
In this article
we discuss API and its function and features.
Introduction
API full of the form is the Application Programming Interface. An API is a group of functions, routines, data structures, object
classes, variables, protocols can be used to create software or interact with
an external system or we can say an API specifies how software or application components should interact and work. With the growth
of web applications and mobile apps and its allied services, API becomes the most important part of developers.
The developer of API must follow a set rule. If developer follows the
rules the API will talk to Application or software usually in the case of
returning some data and if he/she won't follow the rules the API won't send
him/her back what he/she expected and in most cases will break his/her
application. Like a Java API would mean that your
application talks to Java using that interface. A PHP API would mean using that
interface you talk to the PHP interface.
What
is the Purpose of API?
The main purpose of API is to help the developer to develop a more efficient application without the bothering of developing the
completing API. They used it and do their job. It will automate and integrate
with efficient coding and simplifying the programming.
Different
Types of APIs
There are many different types of APIs for operating
systems, applications or websites. Windows, for example, has many API sets that
are used by system hardware and applications — when you copy and paste text
from one application to another, it is the API that allows that to work.
There are 4 main types
of APIs which are as follows
- Internal or Private API: Various companies build their own API and used it for their purpose to solve there problem or simplify their work and services.
- Open API: This API is meant for the public and it has no restriction to use. Anybody can use without any restriction. These are backed by open data and it is freely available. The publisher uses these API with some limit by the developer. Like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn API used by the publisher with some restrictions.
- Partner APIs: These API are limited to the specific vendor. These API are generally monetized. The best Example is an online payment gateway.
- Composite APIs: As the name suggests these API combines different data and service
Apart from the main web
APIs, there are some famous and widely used web-based APIs are SOAP, XML-RPC,
JSON-RPC, and REST.
Practical API Design: Confessions of a Java Framework Architect Paperback by Jaroslav Tulach
REST API Design Rulebook: Designing Consistent RESTful Web Service Interfaces Paperback by Mark Masse
Some of the popular API
The most usable programming language Java has many API.
Most of the task done by the API’s classes and packages. The Java API is a library
of number of lines written within pieces of code and that are free to use, it
included in the Java Development Environment (JDK).
- Java compiler(Java language)
- Java Virtual Machine (JVM)
- Java Application Programming Interface (API)
Java compiler consists of all contents of syntax, keyword and the semantics of the language. It contains all primitive types, if/ else /switch,
for (), while (). (Read)
Java Virtual Machine (JVM) execute java byte code(java compile code)(Read)
Java Application Programming Interface (API) is a group of classes with JDK(Read)
YouTube APIs facilitate developers to use a variety of YouTube features in their application. Using the YouTube API to upload Youtube videos, manage playlists and subscriptions, update channel settings, and many more in their webpages and application or device.
Google API
Google has lots of API's which facilitate the developer to use their specific purpose. One of the widely used Google API is Google Maps API which lets the developer embed Google Maps on their application by using JavaScript code.
TwitterAPIs
Twitter API allows developers to embed the features of Twitter without having to go through the website interface. It will automate tweets by using there API code. The Twitter APIs offer two types of API the REST API which permits developers to embed core Twitter data and the Search API, which search tweets and trends.
The Facebook API allow its users to
utilizing social profiles, friend, page, group, photo and event data in their application.
These API uses RESTful and JSON.
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