Introduction to REST APIs

Introduction to REST APIs

This workshop will teach you the fundamentals of REST APIs, their architecture, and their use in web applications. You will also learn about key concepts such as HTTP methods and request/response. The workshop will be hands-on, and you will use Postman to explore these different concepts.

The workshop is designed for beginners, so there will be a short introduction to APIs. However, no prior experience with REST APIs is required.

This workshop was part of an API workshop series being done collaboratively with the Google Developer Students Club at Moi University.

Event Link: https://gdsc.community.dev/events/details/developer-student-clubs-moi-university-presents-introduction-to-rest-api/

Transcript

1. Introduction to REST APIs Deeper understanding about REST APIs
2. Clifford Ouma @clifford_ouma Who I am Postman Student Leader Moi University Clifford Ouma
3. Agenda go.postman.co/build Recap intro to APIs? 1. Introduction to RESTful APIs 2. Building RESTful requests 3. Working with responses 4. Demo using HTTP requests 5. Conclusion 6.
4. What’s an API?
5. API? Application Programming Interface A P I
6. Interface I Allow control of interaction with obstruction
7. Interface I Allow control of interaction with obstruction UI is for users while API is for programmer
8. Interface I Allow control of interaction with obstruction UI is for users while API is for programmer Allows programmer interact with data without worrying about implementation
9. APIs Client Server
10. There’s an API for everything Everything The Cat API OpenWeatherMap Twilio Discord Youtube-to-MP3 Spotify Twitter Facebook Google And so many more!
11. More than 500,000 organizations & 13 Million developers use Postman 98% of Fortune 500 Organizations use Postman 65% of Global 2000 Organizations use Postman Postman is a collaborative API development platform that simplifies creating, using, and testing APIs with a UI What is Postman?
12. Working APIs: Then and Now cURL Command Line Postman
13. Let's talk about REST APIs
14. Introduction to REST APIs R E S T State Representational Transfer
15. Introduction to REST APIs REST defined a clear way of working with Web APIs
16. Introduction to REST APIs REST defined a clear way of working with Web APIs APIs that use REST architecture are called RESTful APIs
17. Requests and Responses
18. Request-Response Pattern Client Server Request Response Resources Services Network API
19. Making Requests Method (GET, POST, etc) Address/Endpoint (URL) Path The three ingredients to make a request: How we interact with the API
20. Requests - Methods and Endpoints Method GET Retrieve information POST Send information PUT/PATCH Update information DELETE Delete information Bare minimum for a request
21. Requests - Methods and Endpoints Method GET Retrieve information POST Send information PUT/PATCH Update information DELETE Delete information address of the server Bare minimum for a request https://www.google.com/search The scheme of the request. Defines how to communicate Host Path Protocol destination where request can be heard and executed
22. Specifying Detail Parameters Start with ? and have key and value Query params and search params Building your requests
23. Specifying Detail Parameters Start with ? and have key and value Query params and search params Authorization Building your requests
24. Specifying Detail Parameters Start with ? and have key and value Query params and search params Authorization Headers and body Provides metadata and more info Building your requests
25. Requests - Body The data payload Optional, but often supplied with POST and PUT requests Data types form data JSON text HTML XML files GraphQL … and more! { “name”: “Jane Doe”, “email”: “janedoe@email.com”, “birthYear”: 1970 } JSON
26. Receiving Responses Status codes (200 OK, 201 Created, 404 Not found) Headers Accessing body data Response elements
27. Status Codes
28. Receiving Responses They explain what happened on the server side 2xx (Success): e.g 200(Ok) 3xx (Redirection) e.g 301(Moved) 4xx (Client Error) e.g 404 (Not found) 5xx (Server Error) e.g 500(Internal Error) Status Codes Examples:
29. How does all of that fit with REST?
30. Why REST APIs are popular Simple and standardized Easy to understand & industry standard 1.
31. Why REST APIs are popular Simple and standardized Easy to understand & industry standard Scalable and Stateless Modifications & no worry on about state 1. 2.
32. Why REST APIs are popular Simple and standardized Easy to understand & industry standard Scalable and Stateless Modifications & no worry on about state High performance/Caching Reduced number of requests 1. 2. 3.
33. CRUD in REST CRUD HTTP METHODS CREATE POST READ GET UPDATE PUT/PATCH DELETE DELETE
34. Demo TIme
35. Recap
36. Continue Learning APIs as a Student Expert Student Expert certification indicates that you are proficient in the essential skills involved in building and testing API requests in Postman, including: Sending more sophisticated requests in Postman. Editing documentation for a collection. Writing basic test scripts. Running collections, passing data between requests, and scripting request execution order. Have the option to become a Student Leader in your community
37. Postman Student Expert Apply here: https://bit.ly/postman-student-program
38. Resources learning.postman.com Learning Center explore.postman.com API Network community.postman.com Forum
39. Q&A
40. Feedback form https://bit.ly/REST-feedback