Understanding RESTful APIs
A RESTful API is an architectural style for an Application Programming Interface that uses HTTP requests to access and use data. This architectural style was first defined by Roy Fielding in his 2000 doctoral dissertation. According to the Mozilla Developer Network, REST stands for Representational State Transfer.
The primary goal of a REST architecture is to facilitate communication between a Client and a Server. It relies on a Stateless protocol, meaning that each request from a client to a server must contain all the information necessary to understand and complete the request. Common HTTP Methods used in REST include GET for retrieving resources, POST for creating them, PUT for updating, and DELETE for removing data.
Resources in RESTful APIs are typically identified by URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) and are often represented in JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) format, though XML is also supported. As noted by IBM, the constraints of REST allow for high Scalability and Performance in modern Web Services.