If you are into mobile app development, you probably would have come across the term API. API (Application Programming Interface) is an integral piece of mobile app development, enabling better app function.
APIs are crucial for mobile apps to help people stay connected and engaged in this eCommerce and social networking world. For instance, if you check any app on your mobile right now and most likely, it uses Facebook's API. Even if you are on an eCommerce mobile app, the app will have a payment gateway API for easy payment options.
Ideally, mobile apps API will allow users to interact with other applications and software to enjoy a superior mobile app experience. Additionally, developers do not need to code from scratch but integrate the readily available application into your mobile app.
So, API development is getting popular as it speeds up the app development process. When you know that most app functionality exists elsewhere, you can use APIs to integrate those features within your app without coding from scratch.
Moreover, with the innovation of application architecture like cloud services, IoT devices, and AI, APIs are integral to app development. In short, API enables developers to offer unique functionality through their mobile application, whereas entrepreneurs can save their time and money.
Now, let us delve into APIs, their terminologies, importance, tools, and finally, some practices for API development. This blog will be a handy comprehensive guide to API development. Read on to get more insights about APIs.
What is API, and Why is it Essential?
API (Application Programming Interface) is a set of protocols or instructions that enable an app or software to utilize features or services of other applications or devices to provide better services.
In developer terms, an API is nothing but lines of programming code that allow data transmission from one software product to other. To be precise, API connects various applications and enables them to complement each other.
Thus, API eases the work of developers. While writing a new program, developers need not begin from scratch to build a core application. Instead, they can employ specific functionalities by utilizing an existing piece.
To better understand the concept of API, let us take an example. When you are on your Facebook account, you may come across many gaming apps flashing on your Facebook wall. When you try playing them, it will not ask you to log in again. Instead, it accesses the data from the Facebook server and allows you to enjoy the game.
Hence API encourages a mobile application or platform to share its data with other apps/platforms and improve the user experience without the developer’s intervention. Plus, APIs eliminate the need to build a similar program from scratch, as you can use the existing other app’s features.
Therefore, both app developers and business owners focus on API development these days. Now let’s move on to the fundamental terminologies associated with API.
API Glossary: Glossary of API Terms and Programming Acronyms
API glossary is nothing but a list of programming and API-related terms, acronyms, and phrases that allow developers to understand the terminology. Refer to the table below to learn the terminologies used in API.
| API Terminology | Explanation |
|---|---|
| AJAX | It refers to Asynchronous Javascript and XML. It is an advanced technique that combines various programming tools like JavaScript, XML, DHTML, DOM, and Microsoft to create interactive web applications. |
| API | API stands for Application Programming Interface. It is a set of protocols that allow technology products and services to communicate via the internet. |
| API Access | API access is the process of ensuring that only users with appropriate credentials can access an API and use its resources. |
| API Authentication | It refers to the process of verifying the identity of users trying to access resources on the server. |
| API Analytics | It is a process used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. |
| API Key | API is a unique code that grants authorization to an API request through a header or parameter. |
| API Security | API security involves making sure that information in the business database remains safe. |
| API Economy | API economy consists of the secure exchange of data amongst enterprises. It also shares APIs and integrates their functionality. |
| Cache | Cache enables sites to access information from your computer quickly to improve the user experience on websites. |
| API Call | When you add an endpoint to a URL and send a request to a server, it is called an API call. For instance, when you log on to any app or ask a question via a browser, you are making an API call. |
| API Catalog | A catalog enables developers to discover and use internal APIs, rather than searching many places or contacting several people to find APIs. |
| Client | It is nothing but an application, including a browser that works on a computer, mobile phone, or any device. |
| API Collaboration | Collaboration means a team within an organization uses API tools to work together. |
| CORS | It is a technique that enables resource sharing between scripts running on a browser client and resources from a different origin. |
| API Credentials | They are unique identifiers that one can add to code before making a call via an API. |
| CRUD | It’s an acronym that stands for Create, Read, Update and Delete. It is shorthand for fundamental functions that an application should cover. |
| cURL | Here, c stands for a client, and URL indicates that curl works with URLs. |
| Developer Portal | Developer portals enable developers to adopt, understand, interact, and regulate new technologies. |
| API Directory | It is a list of available APIs. |
| API Documentation | API documentation is a technical manual that instructs how to consume and integrate with an API effectively. |
| DOM | DOM or Document Object Model refers to an interchange to web pages. |
| Endpoint | When an API interacts with another system, one end of the communication channel is known as Endpoint. |
| External APIs | An external or open API is an API for a larger population. Developers within and outside the organization can access them. |
| Facial Recognition | It is an advanced technology that uses AI and other sophisticated methods to identify the faces of people. |
| Framework | A framework contains an already established code, structure, procedures, classes, and functions. You can use the framework in any programming language. |
| Gateway | An API Gateway is the programming element that plans and coordinates, and processes various requests in a microservice architecture. |
| GET | It refers to a HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) method that you can apply while requesting information from a particular source. |
| Git Command | It is a free, scalable, open-source distributed version control system. It can offer you high-level operations and full access to internals. |
| Governance | API governance refers to the overall decision-making processes made by stakeholders while creating and reproducing web-based APIs. |
| Graph QL | GraphQL is a declarative query language, syntax, and runtime. You can use it to request data on a server. |
| How to Use an API? | API is like an open language that has specific rules. You can train your application with the protocols of API, enabling it to communicate with the service and access all the functions. |
| HTTP Request Methods | An HTTP request is an action to be performed on a resource identified by a given Request-URL. |
| Idempotency | Idempotency is the property that ensures the same results from an operation even if the same function is applied multiple times beyond the initial application. |
| API Integration | It is the process of creating a means for two or more APS. Thus, you can enable automatic data sharing without any human intervention. |
| JSON | It is an acronym for JavaScript Object Notion. It is a data format that APIs use to interchange data. The data transfer can be between a web application and a server or two applications. |
| JSON API | It is an API for lightweight data interchange between two computer applications operating on the same hardware device. |
| API Key | An API key is a code that gets passed in by computer applications. |
| LAMP | It is a set of software subsystems incorporated to do tasks independently without depending on any external software or data. |
| Latency | It is the time taken for an API to process requests into a response. |
| API Marketplace | API marketplace allows API providers to publish APIS, enabling developers to discover them. |
| API Management | It is a set of processes, protocols, and practices that enable owners to control their API. |
| Mean Stack | It helps to develop scalable and flexible apps that are ideal for cloud hosting. |
| OpenAPI | OpenAPI specification allows developers to simplify application development, especially when it involves multiple protocols, interfaces, and environments. |
| API Parameters | API parameters are the variable parts of a resource. They define the type of action you want to take on those resources. |
| Path Parameters | It is a type of parameter that lives within the endpoint URL. |
| Query Parameters | They are the optional key-value pairs that appear after the question mark in the URL. |
| OAuth | It is an Open standard Authorization framework for APIs. It enables access from the user’s side without directly sharing credentials. |
| PATCH | You can use the HTTP PATCH method to update the resources. It is highly beneficial, especially if it is a large resource and the changes are minor. |
| Payload | A payload in API is the actual data pack that one can send with the GET method in HTTP. |
| POST | It refers to the HTTP method to send loads of data to a server from a specified resource. |
| RapidQL | It enables developers to fetch, combine, and aggregate data from multiple APIs and databases in a single call. |
| Rate Limiting | It refers to the process of defining the rate at which users can access the APIs. To be precise, it means restricting the number of requests a user can hit to an API at a time. |
| Regex | Regular Expression or regex is a text string that enables developers to build a pattern with which they can match, manage, and locate text. |
| API Request | An API request occurs when a developer includes an endpoint to a URL to call the server. |
| REST | Representational State Transfer is a type of programming architectural implementation for enhancing communication between applications. It works on the idea of enabling specific information available only when requested through references rather than the complete copy of the data itself. The World Wide Web is a perfect example of following the architecture. It is known as RESTful systems. |
| RESTful API | It is an API that conforms to the REST architectural style constraints and enables interaction with RESTful web services. |
| SDK | It is an acronym for Software Development Kit. It comprises a kit or set of software tools, guidelines, and programs used by developers to create applications. |
| API Testing | It is a type of software testing that involves testing APIS directly and as part of integration testing to find out if they meet expectations for functionality, reliability, performance, and security. |
| API Throttling | It is a process that focuses on regulating the use of API per user at a given time. For instance, when a user exceeds the API requests limit per day, the server delivers a message as HTTP status indicating “ too many requests”. |
| URI | It stands for Uniform Resource Identifier. It is a sequence of characters that identifies a web resource by location, name or both in the World Wide Web. |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator is a sequence of characters that identifies the network location of a resource. |
| API Versioning | It is the practice of creating collaborative data sharing and editing controls. Thus, your product continues to offer more choices without upgrading to the latest version. |
| Webhooks | Webhooks allow applications to communicate automatically. Thus, they provide a server-side application with a mechanism to notify the client-side application about the occurrence of any new event. |
How Does an API work?
Let us understand the API functionality with a practical example. How many times have you booked a flight or hotel for your travel and vacation? You go to the travel or hotel booking website and enter all the essential details like travel date, city, or a total number of days for a stay or other relevant data and click enter.
The very next moment, you get all details with a list of flights available to that city or the number of hotels present in the city with addresses. All these happens within a fraction of seconds. How is that even possible?
There comes the role of APIs. The platform sends a request to the airline or hotel website to access their database and get relevant data via API. Thus, it comes with accurate data in a few seconds. The website received the data that API rendered to the platform and displayed it on the screen.
Thus, here the flight booking or hotel booking website/app act as endpoints, whereas API is the intermediate streamlining the data sharing process. The API works in two ways, like REST and SOAP, to communicate between the endpoints.
Now, let’s move on to the crucial part. How to develop an API? What API development tools and technologies to use? Read on.
Tools For API Development
Though there are many API design tools and technologies available in the market for API development, we are here with a list of popular API tools and technologies that developers can put in use:
- Apigee: It is an API development management tool from Google. It assists the developers and entrepreneurs in achieving the digital transformation by reestablishing an API approach.
- APIMatic and API Transformer: These tools provide sophisticated automatic generation tools for building top-quality SDKs. They even offer code snippets from API-specific formats and transform them into other specification formations like RAML, API Blueprint, and more.
- API Science: It helps in the evaluation of internal and external API performance.
- API Serverless Architecture: It helps developers in designing, building, publishing, and hosting APIs via cloud-based servers.
- API Platform: It is an open-source PHP framework that is ideal for web API development.
- Auth0: It is an identity management solution that you can leverage to authenticate and authorize APIs.
- ClearBlade: It is an API management provider that enables you to integrate IoT technology into your process.
- GitHub: It is an open-source repository hosting service that allows developers to manage code files, pull requests, version control, and the shared comments across the group. Furthermore, it also enables them to save their code in private repositories.
- Postman: It is an API toolchain that lets developers run, test, document, and evaluate their API performance.
- Swagger: It is an open-source framework used for API development. Many established technology like GettyImages and Microsoft use Swagger.
As you are already familiar with API terminologies and tools, now let’s move on to the API development best practices.
Best Practices for API Development
- Use Throttling: You can redirect traffic overflow, backup APIs, and safeguard from DoS attacks (Denial of Service) with App Throttling.
- Consider Your API Gateway as Enforcer: The API gateway should act as an enforcement point that ensures the data is available to the appropriate users. It further should encrypt messages or edit confidential information and thereby analyze and manage your API usage.
- Allow Overriding HTTP Method: As some proxies only support GET and POST methods, you should let your RESTful API override the HTTP method. You can do so by employing the custom HTTP Header X-HTTP-Method-Override.
- Evaluate the APIs and Infrastructure: You can leverage tools like AWS Cloudwatch to analyze and evaluate your APIS rather than having a dedicated developer analyze the API in real-time.
- User-Friendly: Of course, you need a secure API, but it should be user-friendly too. If any user spends a few more minutes on authentication, that means your API is not user-friendly.
- Documentation: Finally, creating full-fledged documentation for an API for mobile apps is mandatory. That will enable other mobile app developers to understand the complete process. Thus, they can use the information to offer a better user experience.
Summing Up
After seeing in detail about APIs, you can safely assume that APIs benefit both developers and business owners. Yes, while developers need not code from scratch, app owners can offer apps with better functionalities and a heightened user experience at a reduced price in a relatively short time.
Nevertheless, APIs are known for enhancing business profits by offering needed technological connectivity. So, you can even develop the required API for your business and integrate it with your mobile apps as well.
So, are you a business owner looking for API development services? Or do you want to develop a mobile app for your business? In either case, you have already arrived at the right place.
Cypherox Technologies is a leading software development company that can help you with both API development and mobile app development services. Our experts will guide you through the entire process and help you in building a secure API or a robust mobile app. Feel free to reach us for any queries regarding mobile app development or API development.
