I've recently come across the term api and from what I have known api is a interface that connects/integrates between two programs and it can run on any platform.
And again from java we know that it turns it's source code into bytecodes and this bytecode can run on any platforms since it is platform independent.
So my question is does api work/run just like as a bytecode to provide multi-platform functionality
And if not is there any similarities between them or thier process? If please anyone could explain it to me it would be a great help. Thanks in advance.
API does not work like bytecode
Actually, API and Bytecodes are a completely different thing
For Bytecode,
let's try to understand it in java. java compiler compiles a java program then produce bytecode. Then the bytecode is interpreted by java interpreter in different machines and generate different executable files as the requirement of different machines and os.
this is how java maintains it's multi-platform property
Now, API,
API stands for Application Programming Interface. An API is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. In other words, an API is the messenger that delivers your request to the provider that you’re requesting it from and then delivers the response back to you.
there are many types of API's out there
but I think you are referring to Web API and it's multi-platform functionality and how it works.
A Web API is an application programming interface for either a web server or a web browser
A Web API works as server-client architecture.
client request to server through HTTP protocol, server responds to client through HTTP protocol
actually whole api service is provided through HTTP protocol, and this api service can provide to any device using HTTP protocol
this has nothing to do with bytecode
Related
I have a project for Master's Degree: design and implementation of web services for an elearning platform.
Now, I know that there are two main architectures for web services: SOAP, and REST
Now, I wanted to use REST architecture, so normally I would have something called "RESTful web services", so I started development with Django and Django Rest Framework
Now, this is the part where I get confused, Is this an API or Web Services
If it is an API, then how can I develop RESTful Web Services?
If it is both, please explain more if you could.
I'm very confused about this, and each time I try to understand, I get more confused, Please can someone clarify this to me?
An application programming interface (API) allows you to interact with a component, system, or resource. It's a very broad concept. To understand it, the emphasis should be placed on the word interface:
In computing, an interface is a shared boundary across which two or more separate components of a computer system exchange information. The exchange can be between software, computer hardware, peripheral devices, humans, and combinations of these.
When you need something from a component or you want it to do something for you, you don't just go in it and do it yourself, you "ask it" for that something or for that action by interfacing with it. The interface of the component says what it can do for you or what you can invoke from the component.
In regards to web services, you have to understand that a web service is in fact an API, because it's an interface with some component (in this case whatever is behind the web service itself: it can be a database, an application, a system, etc).
Like I said, an API is a very broad term. When you say web service, you are adding some restrictions to that term. For example, a web service is invoked over the network. Not all APIs are like this. Some API's can be exposed as libraries, or frameworks that you call directly from your code as methods or functions. So all web services are APIs, but not all APIs are web services.
If you want to build a web service, you can implement it with REST or with SOAP. There is a difference between the two (REST is an architectural style, while SOAP is a protocol), but as concepts they work the same: they provide an interface with which to interact over the network, i.e. an API. But since you are using Django, thus Python, I suggest you go the REST way, not SOAP (support for SOAP in Python isn't all that great).
I want to develop server side application like a blog app, So how can i use kotlin programming language as a server side language.
Ktor is a framework for building asynchronous servers and clients in connected systems using the powerful Kotlin programming language. This website provides a complete reference to the Ktor application structure and programming interface. And how to approach particular tasks.
Ktor offcial site
I'm planing on creating an native .net app for Windows as well as a native OSX application with swift.
These two applications should be able to communicate with the same server. With that I mean writing and reading from the same SQL Database, and have REST communication with the server.
Now I'm struggling to come up with a solution for the backend. I'm looking into Serverless backends like Azure or Google Cloud, but I'm not sure that I can use these Services with both my applications. Both Azure and Google Cloud have SDKs for .Net but I've never found one for Swift or Objective-C.
Are there such Services that allow me to communicate or should I just develop my own?
Do you have any good solutions for my problem? Or what is the best server architecture to use for this kind of problem? Any inputs are appreciated!
If your servers vend a REST API, no vendor SDKs should be required. REST is platform- and vendor-agnostic. All you need is an HTTP client, which Swift/ObjC most definitely do have. I use a serverless (AWS Lambda) setup from Swift, and it's easy. Though, I have done this kind of thing before :)
What I would do is setup a simple test server, and expose an API endpoint. Make sure you can reach it with curl from your machine. Then, take a look at the NSURLSession APIs in Foundation. They'll help you make an HTTP request similar to what curl can do. From there, you'll need to investigate serialization (like JSON), which Swift can also do easily (as of Swift 4, I believe).
Good luck!
The functions for operating the restful api is quite same. Is there any project that can generate the source code for different platform such android,ios and backend stuff.
I suggest you to use API description languages such Swagger ou RAML.
After having described your RESTful application with a language like this, you will be able to generate things like server skelekons and client sdks with different technologies and languages. You can even generate documentations.
With Swagger, swagger-codegen will do that. swagger-ui may also interest you for the documentation part.
To finish, I would like to mention the Restlet studio that allows to define graphically and quickly the structure of RESTful applications and generate then the corresponding Swagger and RAML contents. The APISpark plaform provides a mecanism to introspect Restlet applications and generate the corresponding contents with these languages. It also allow you to generate a set of server skelekons and client sdks.
Hope it helps you.
I will suggest you to use Spring RESTful webservices starter kit. Which will manage your back-end with centralized database. Also Spring has its own android libs to communicate with REST Apis.
I have been evaluating and working on a prototype where I have exposed couple of API using WCF web service. My service is working as expected with managed client in windows platform. My service client can be on any platform. I dont know how to approach for other platform (UNIX). Couple of options I have considered so far -
GSOAP
MONO dotnet
I could not use any one of these due to some constraints. Now the only option I left out to implement my own client which can send soap request and get soap response. My preferred technology is C/C++. I am using wsHttpBinding in my server and will be working on http protocol only.
I am not sure about the following points-
Do I need to implement my own WSDL parser?
Do I need my own serializer?
How could I make my client more flexible so that any changes in my WSDL make minimal code changes on client side?
I am looking for help from the experts who could guide me with a proper approach with a basic client sample.
My experience is in WCF interoperability with Java clients. You can use Java SOAP libraries like metro http://metro.java.net/ or axis http://axis.apache.org/axis2/java/core/index.html . There is even a C library for axis. http://axis.apache.org/axis2/c/core/
I am sure other languages like Ruby/Python etc has similar libraries as well.
The other option is to use a REST based interface and then you can use any language/platform that has HTTP support or even a tool like curl and libcurl http://curl.haxx.se/.