Things I want to know more about

APIs

API Design Best Practices

1. What does REST stand for?

• REST stands for Representational State Transfer. (It is sometimes spelled “ReST”.) It relies on a stateless, client-server, cacheable communications protocol – and in virtually all cases, the HTTP protocol is used.

1. REST APIs are designed around a resources.

2. What is an identifer of a resource? Give an example.

• genes, organisms, tools, and reagents (such as antibodies).

1. What are the most common HTTP verbs?

• Are POST, GET, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE.

1. What should the URIs be based on?

• Resource Description Framework.

1. Give an example of a good URI:

• example.com/articles/good-uri-design.

1. What does it mean to have a ‘chatty’ web API? Is this a good or a bad thing?

• is one that requires consumer to make tremendous (subjective matter) amount of distinct API calls to get needed information about a resource. George Reese has defined chatty API as any API that requires consumer to do more than a single call to perform a single, common operation. its poor quality.

1. What status code does a successful GET request return?

• 2xx Successful: This means the server successfully processed the request, but is not returning any content.

1. What status code does an unsuccessful GET request return?

• 412:“Precondition Failed.” Your browser included certain conditions in its request headers, and the server did not meet those specifications.

1. What status code does a successful POST request return?

• The origin server MUST create the resource before returning the 201 status code.

1. What status code does a successful DELETE request return?

• A 202 ( Accepted ) status code if the action will likely succeed but has not yet been enacted.