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An Introduction To Rest Api: Presented By: Aniruddh Bhilvare 22 April, 2017

This document provides an introduction and overview of REST APIs. It defines REST as an architectural style based on web standards and the HTTP protocol. Resources are represented and accessed via HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. REST APIs use URLs and global IDs to identify resources, and support different data formats like JSON. They are stateless and scalable. The document discusses REST API design best practices like using nouns in URLs, plural resource names, HTTP status codes, filtering, sorting, and pagination.

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120 views26 pages

An Introduction To Rest Api: Presented By: Aniruddh Bhilvare 22 April, 2017

This document provides an introduction and overview of REST APIs. It defines REST as an architectural style based on web standards and the HTTP protocol. Resources are represented and accessed via HTTP methods like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE. REST APIs use URLs and global IDs to identify resources, and support different data formats like JSON. They are stateless and scalable. The document discusses REST API design best practices like using nouns in URLs, plural resource names, HTTP status codes, filtering, sorting, and pagination.

Uploaded by

jankos11
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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An Introduction to

REST API
Presented By:
Aniruddh Bhilvare
22 April, 2017
What is it ?
JSON GET RESPONSE
POST

WEB RESPONSE
URL
INTERNET HEADER

API
METHOD
REQUEST
HTTP
What is it ?
REST means
REpresentational
State
Transfer
REpresentational ? State ? Transfer ?
It represent the state of database at a time. But how???

REST is an architectural style which is based on web-standards and the


HTTP protocol.

In a REST based architecture everything is a Resource.

A resource is accessed via a common interface based on the HTTP standard


methods.

You typically have a REST server which provides access to the resources and
a REST client which accesses and modifies the REST resources.
REpresentational ? State ? Transfer ?
Every resource should support the HTTP common operations.

Resources are identified by global IDs (which are typically URIs or URLs).

REST allows that resources have different representations, e.g., text, XML,
JSON etc.

Stateless in nature. Excellent for distributed system.

Stateless components can be freely redeployed if something fails, and they


can scale to accommodate load changes.

This is because any request can be directed to any instance of a component.


HTTP Methods
The PUT, GET, POST and DELETE methods are typically used in REST based
architectures. The following table gives an explanation of these operations:

HTTP Method CRUD Operation Description

POST INSERT Addes to an existing resource

PUT UPDATE Overrides existing resource

GET SELECT Fetches a resource. The resource is


never changed via a GET request

DELETE DELETE Deletes a resource


Architecture:
HTTP Request Example:
HTTP Response Example:
HTTP REST Request:
GET https://www.myhost.com/api/v1/user/1/cities

Read, All the cities for user whose id is 1

GET /user/1/cities http/1.1


host: https://www.myhost.com/api/v1
Content-Type: application/json
Accept-Language: us-en
state_id: 2

HTTP REST API Request


HTTP REST Response:
HTTP/1.1 200 OK (285ms)
Date: Fri, 21 Apr 2017 10:27:20 GMT
Server: Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS) OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips PHP/7.0.16
X-Powered-By: PHP/7.0.16
Content-Length: 109
Keep-Alive: timeout=5, max=100
Connection: Keep-Alive
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8

{"status":"success","message":"City
List","data":[{"city_name":"Visakhapatnam"},{"city_name":"Vijayawada"}]}

HTTP REST API Response


HTTP Response Status Code:
1xx Informational Codes

2xx Successful Codes

3xx Redirection Codes

4xx Client Error Code

5xx Server Error Codes

List at here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HTTP_status_codes


Points to be noted
For REST APIs
Use Nouns but no verbs in path/URI:
Purpose Method Incorrect Correct

Retrieves a list of users GET /getAllCars /users

Create a new user POST /createUser /users

Delete a user DELETE /deleteUser /users/10

Get balance of user GET /getUserBalance /users/11/balance


Use plural nouns:
Do not mix up singular and plural nouns. Keep it simple and use only plural
nouns for all resources.

/cars instead of /car


/users instead of /user
/products instead of /product
/settings instead of /setting
GET method should not alter the state:
Use PUT, POST and DELETE methods instead of the GET method to alter
the state.

Do not use GET method or Query parameters for state changes:

GET /users/711?activate or

GET /users/711/activate
Use sub-resources for relation:
If a resource is related to another resource use subresources

GET /cars/711/drivers/ (Returns a list of drivers for car 711)

GET /cars/711/drivers/4 (Returns driver #4 for car 711)


Use HTTP headers for serialization formats:
Both, client and server need to know which format is used for the
communication. The format has to be specified in the HTTP-Header.

Content-Type defines the request format.

Accept defines a list of acceptable response formats.


Versioning is important:
Make the API Version mandatory and do not release an unversioned API.

Use a simple ordinal number and avoid dot notation such as 2.5

We are using the url for the API versioning starting with the letter “v”

/blog/api/v1
Handle Errors with HTTP Status code:
200 OK (Everything is working) 403 Forbidden (The server understood the
request, but is refusing it or the access is
not allowed)

201 OK (New resource has been created) 404 Not found (There is no resource behind the
URI)

204 OK (Resource successfully deleted) 405 Method not allowed

400 Bad Request (The request was invalid or 408 Request timeout
cannot be served. The exact error should
be explained in the error payload. E.g.
„The JSON is not valid“)

401 Unauthorized (The request requires an 500 Internal server error


user authentication)
Filtering:
Use a unique query parameter for all fields or a query language for filtering.

GET /cars?color=red (Returns a list of red cars)

GET /users?name=tom (Returns a list of users whose name matches tom)


Sorting:
Allow ascending and descending sorting over multiple fields.

GET /cars?sort=-manufacturer,+model

This returns a list of cars sorted by descending manufacturers and


ascending models)
Paging:
Use limit and offset. It is flexible for the user and common in leading
databases.

The default should be limit=20 and offset=0

GET /cars?offset=10&limit=5
Aliases for common queries:
To make the API experience more pleasant for the average consumer,
consider packaging up sets of conditions into easily accessible RESTful
paths.

For example consider following use case:

POST /users (User Register: Creates a new user)

POST /users/login (User Login: Creates auth token for user authentication)
Want to develop REST APIs easily???

Checkout Slim - A microframework for php.

Documentation: https://www.slimframework.com/docs/
Thanks for your Time & Patience!
Any Question?

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