REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural pattern/style.
A service based on REST is called a RESTful service.
What is Rest API ? and Is there any difference between Rest API, Rest Web service and Restfull web service ?
A RESTful web service is the implementation of the REST API (Application Programmable Interface) or the REST spec. In this case you are also creating an API with your endpoints that you create. In a sense they are actually the same thing and are just two terms that are interchangeable in the context of your question. The wording may be a little confusing but tl;dr; RESTful Web Service == REST API == REST Web Service for this situation
Outside of the context of the OP's question an API is not the same as a Web Service. An API can mean any interface or library used to interact with anything from code. This can be a smart dishwasher API or Web Sockets or cell phone SMS or even jQuery. In that same sense a Web Service is just a kind of API that provides information over the web.
API means Application Programming Interface. A REST API or RESTful API is an API that is compliant to REST. REST is usually implemented using web technology, but REST does not strictly require web technology to be used. An example of a RESTful API is a RESTful web service or a set of RESTful web services.
To summarize:
REST API = RESTful API
REST Web service = RESTful Web service
A set of one or more logically related RESTful Web services is an example of a RESTful API
The difference is merely a linguistic one. The difference between REST and RESTful is like the difference between BEAUTY and BEAUTIful. REST is a noun, whereas RESTful is an adjective.
Mainly, atleast in JAVA EE REST Web service is one with WADL definition like SOAP. and REST api don't have any such definition published
"REST" is an architectural paradigm and "RESTFUL" describes that paradigm
Related
I would like to know the best practices of calling a REST API from SOAP.
Requirement:
We have a SOAP-based web service that is already consuming by many applications. we would like to rewrite the SOAP API with Rest(basically a Spring boot application), but we want to call the rest from SOAP to support the existing applications.
The one way I know is we can call the Rest Api from the SOAP server implementation class
EX: Consider EmployeeService;java is a SOAP implementation class
EmployeeService.java
getEmployee(){
Calling new Rest Api
}
Existing app1 ---->SOAP --> REST API
Existing app2 ---->SOAP --> REST API
new app1 --> REST API.
Please let me know is there any best way\alternate way to handle it.
You can use boomerang soap client.
Detail here
What is the difference between REST and RESTFUL ROUTING and REST API? in the case of ruby on rails. what is the practical implementation that we can see in the form of coding in rails? is there any difference between REST and RESTFUL ROUTING and REST API what is the relation between them?
Is it possible to call a SOAP web service a web api? or is a web api a synonym for a REST Api only ?
It certainly is a web API, so yes. The term API gets used in a lot of different ways, but using it for a SOAP webservice is not unprecedented: SalesForce used to call their SOAP webservice their 'webservice API' but have since renamed it to 'SOAP API'.
Can anyone tell me the difference between the REST API and APEX REST.I am new to REST concept.I am very much confused about them.
The REST API (Force.com REST API) is the generic API provided by Salesforce. On the other hand, the Apex REST API is an API written by yourself in apex to provide custom methods.
The Force.com REST API is great for things such as CRUD operations. You should write a custom Apex REST API when you want to perform more complicated actions.
REST -> architectural style for distributed hypermedia systems.
APREX REST -> Apex REST enables you to implement custom Web services in Apex and expose them through the REST architecture.
Second is used to build RESTful web services
Use the REST API most of the time. You can access your records and update them like you'd expect. But if you need to do something special, like update two records, and only have the changes saved if both updates were successful, then look at Apex REST, where you can customize what your API call does as much as you like.
More details in this interview: https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/tech-pubs/2011/10/salesforce-apis-what-they-are-when-to-use-them.html
Regardless of whether I create a RESTful Web service to be consumed by Ajax in my own pages, or by any user, I can provide the same functionality (data) to the application or user using a simple servlet.
I mean the user or application don't see any different between response provided by a simple servlet or respone provided by a RESTful web service. So, I'm guessing that the benefit is on the server side and to the developers. Can someone please tell me what are the benefits of using RESTful web services.
I appreciate any respone
By definition a webservice is intended to be consumed by any client granted access. If the client you are developing is the only application that you will ever need or want to access the resource then there is little benefit to creating a webservice. However, if you want to make the resource available as a service endpoint for more than just this application in a way that is implementation agnostic then a Restful webservice is a great way of doing it.