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API's

 

API's

Types of API's

REST API - Representational State Transfer is a commonly used API category that isn’t dependent on a specific protocol. It’s considered a relatively user-friendly API to work with and many developers are experienced in this technology. It’s an architecture style of communicating interfaces.

SOAP API - Simple Object Access Protocol is an API that connects different platforms together through HTTP and XML. Its relatively older than other API implementations, but it provides more security as it follows strict protocols. It’s a protocol for communication between applications.

ASP.NET API - Specific form of REST API developed around .NET technology.


REST vs SOAP

Both have some similarities for instance they both support SSL/TLS for secure and encrypted communications, also they both use HTTP to exchange information. When deciding which API to use you must take in many factors into consideration like, security, ACID compliance, and overall application design. For instance, REST is a better choice if you’re trying to build a public API as they have lower security requirements and are much more flexible.

 

SOAP

REST

Design

Exposes the operation

Exposes the data

Transport protocol

Independent and can work with any transport protocol

Only works with HTTPS

Data format

Only supports XML data exchange

Supports XML, JSON, HTML, and plain text

Performance

Larger messages, which makes communications slower

Has a faster performance due to smaller messages and catching support

Scalability

Difficult to scale as the server maintains state by storing all previous messages exchanged with a client

Easy to scale due to it being stateless so every message is processes independently of previous messages

Security

Supports encryption with additional overheads

Supports encryption without effecting the overall performance

Use case

Useful in legacy applications and private API’s

Useful in modern applications and public API’s

 

LHTTP request methods

An average rest-based architecture uses mainly 4 HTTP methods.

HTTP method

CRUD method

Description

POST

CREATE/INSERT

Adds a new resource

GET

READ/SELECT

Reads the resource

PUT

UPDATE

Edits an existing resource

DELETE

DELETE

Deletes a resource

 

HTTP status codes

  • 1XX - informational
  • 2XX - success
  • 3XX - redirection
  • 4XX - client error
  • 5XX - server error

The most common HTTP status codes are:

·         200 – ok

·         301 – moved permanently

·         303 – see other

·         400 – bad request

·         403 – forbidden

·         404 – not found

·         500 – internal server error

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