REST API, which stands for Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface, is an architectural style for designing networked applications. It provides a set of guidelines and principles for building web services that can be easily consumed by clients. Rest api is the form of api application programming interface. If you are not sure what it is I would reccomend you to read What is Api in web article first.

In a REST API, resources are identified by unique URLs, and interactions with these resources are performed using standard HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE. The API follows a stateless client-server communication model, where the server does not maintain any client-specific state between requests.

Key principles of a REST API include:

Resource-Based: Resources, such as data objects or services, are identified by unique URLs (Uniform Resource Locators). For example, /users could represent a collection of user resources, and /users/123 could represent a specific user with the ID 123.

Uniform Interface: The API provides a uniform set of HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, DELETE) to perform operations on resources. Each method has a specific purpose: retrieving, creating, updating, partially updating, or deleting a resource.

Stateless: The server does not maintain any client-specific state between requests. Each request from the client must contain all the necessary information for the server to process it.

Client-Server: The client and server are separate entities that communicate over the network. The server provides the API, and the client consumes it by making HTTP requests.

Cacheable: Responses from the server can be cached by the client or intermediate caching systems to improve performance and reduce server load.

REST APIs are widely used for building web services because they are simple, scalable, and platform-independent. They are commonly used in various scenarios, such as web applications, mobile applications, and integration between different systems.

When interacting with a REST API, clients make HTTP requests to specific endpoints (URLs) to perform operations on the corresponding resources. The server then processes the request, performs the necessary actions, and returns an HTTP response with the appropriate status code and data.

API documentation typically describes the available endpoints, their corresponding HTTP methods, the expected request and response formats, and any additional requirements or constraints for interacting with the API.

It’s important to note that while REST is a popular architectural style, there are other approaches and variations for building APIs, such as GraphQL, which provide different trade-offs and features.

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