RESTful Web API

REST (Representational State Transfer)

• Principles

  1. Everything is a resource

     Representing data by a specific format and not by a physival file containing a bunch of types. Content Type: [image/jpeg, video/mpeg, text/html, application/octet-stream]

  2. Each resource is identifiable by a unique identifier (URI)

     All shoul be accesible via URIs

  3. Resources are manipulated via standard HTTP methods

     HTTP protocol defines some actions known as HTTP verbs

  4. Resources can have multiple representations

     A resource is that it may be represented in a different format

  5. Communicate with resources in a stateless manner

     All modifications of a resource should be carried out within an http request in an isolated manner, so mean application to be stateless, state is your related data.

• The REST goals

  1. Separation of the representation and the resource

     • Server application to handke the representation accordingly content type header

  2. Visibility

     • Rest is designed to be visible and simple.
     • Caching reduce the visibility

  3. Reliability

     • Http method es idempotent if its response stay the same

  4. Scalability and performance

     • Performance is measured by the time need for a single request to be process.
     • Scalability is all about serving all your clients in an accpetable amount of time. prevent DoS.