API Terms to Know - abbernie/web-dev-sp17 GitHub Wiki

API - A way for computers to send data to each other. A way for you, as a programmer, to access data from services you want to use in your website, like Twitter, Tumblr, or YouTube. Technically, it stands for Application Programming Interface, which basically means that a service, or Application can set up standards for interacting, or Interfacing with its information. The APIs we'll be using will all specify a URL to use that will allow us to retrieve the information we need. For a succinct, 3-minute explanation of APIs, see this YouTube video.

URI (aka URL) - The web address you go to to access an API

Example: http://api.tumblr.com/v2/blog/applemusic.tumblr.com/posts?api_key=n0xydjN5o4gRL

API Key - a long series of letters and numbers that a service gives you to identify yourself when you use their API.

For example, It might look something like this: 9FclwlYIt0RLk9yicQzFMiNkzLjhrdLn2PkWIPw5x51a

API end-point - The part of a URL that determines what type of information the API will provide

Example: In this URL, https://api.tumblr.com/v2/tagged?tag=kittens&api_key=22fuiKNFp9, the end point is "tagged"

Query String - The ending part of some URLs, it begins with a question mark, and can contain one or more name-value pairs, each separated by and ampersand (&).

For example, in the URL https://api.tumblr.com/v2/tagged?tag=kittens&api_key=22fuiKNFp9, the query string is: ?tag=kittens&api_key=22fuiKNFp9. In this case, the query string contains two name-value pairs; they are:

• tag=kittens
• api_key=22fuiKNFp9

API Documentation - The user manual for a particular API.

For example, Tumblr's API Documentation is here: https://www.tumblr.com/docs/en/api/v2

Parse - To analyze; to study something by looking at its parts closely. -Merriam Webster Dictionary

JSON - A way of formatting text that's easy for computers to process. JSON stands for JavaScript Object Notation -- its formatting is almost identical to the way objects are formatted in Javascript.