Introduction to API (Application Programming Interface)

What is an API?

API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface , which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other. Each time you use an app like Facebook, send an instant message or check the weather on your phone, you’re using an API.

Why do we need an API?

It helps you to embed content from any site or application more efficiently. Content generated can be published automatically. It allows the user or a company to customize the content and services which they use the most. Software needs to change over time, and APIs help to anticipate changes.

For Example:

When you use an application on your mobile phone, the application connects to the Internet and sends data to a server.
The server then retrieves that data, interprets it, performs the necessary actions, and sends it back to your phone.
The application then interprets that data and presents you with the information you wanted in a readable way.
This is what an API is. All of this happens via API

Let us take an example of API in real life.

You are sitting in a restaurant and you have a menu card by which you can order your desired food.
You choose and then order it. Then the chef will serve the desired food only.
Like you ordered Shahi Paneer.
The chef will only focus on the recipe of Shahi Paneer. He knows thousands of recipes but here the only food he will make is Shahi Paneer.
Here the person ordering is the user , the menu is the API , and the chef is the server .

API in programming languages.

High-Level Programming languages also have APIs which provide abstraction, like Collections in Java and STL in C++, because of which the developer doesn’t need to implement some of the basic components like Lists, Linked Lists, HashMaps , etc. From scratch and they are also easy to use and manipulate.

Major advantages of using APIs

Efficiency

Good API thinks through its developer experience, providing complete, accurate, and easy-to-digest documentation. it also helps its developers by thinking through common use cases, the sort of things the real user of the API will want.

Security

Your phone's data is never fully exposed to the server, and likewise, the server is never fully exposed to your phone. Instead, each communicates with small packets of data sharing only that which is necessary like ordering takeout. You tell the restaurant what you would like to eat, they tell you what they need in return and then in the end you get your meal.

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