Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 22 views

    CC 5018 en

    Uploaded by

    Mirko Kiefer
    An API (Application Programming Interface) allows two digital applications to share data and information. APIs work by exposing endpoints that publish the language used to build an application, allowing other developers to retrieve data from one application and host it in another. There are two main types of APIs: REST APIs which use HTTP URLs and support multiple response formats like JSON, and SOAP APIs which rely solely on XML format. The Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform uses multiple APIs to allow its different components to interact, integrating both internal FAO data and external data accessed via APIs from other digital services and applications.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    CC 5018 en

    Uploaded by

    Mirko Kiefer
    22 views4 pages
    An API (Application Programming Interface) allows two digital applications to share data and information. APIs work by exposing endpoints that publish the language used to build an application, allowing other developers to retrieve data from one application and host it in another. There are two main types of APIs: REST APIs which use HTTP URLs and support multiple response formats like JSON, and SOAP APIs which rely solely on XML format. The Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform uses multiple APIs to allow its different components to interact, integrating both internal FAO data and external data accessed via APIs from other digital services and applications.

    Original Title

    cc5018en

    Copyright

    © © All Rights Reserved

    Available Formats

    PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    An API (Application Programming Interface) allows two digital applications to share data and information. APIs work by exposing endpoints that publish the language used to build an application, allowing other developers to retrieve data from one application and host it in another. There are two main types of APIs: REST APIs which use HTTP URLs and support multiple response formats like JSON, and SOAP APIs which rely solely on XML format. The Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform uses multiple APIs to allow its different components to interact, integrating both internal FAO data and external data accessed via APIs from other digital services and applications.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    22 views4 pages

    CC 5018 en

    Uploaded by

    Mirko Kiefer
    An API (Application Programming Interface) allows two digital applications to share data and information. APIs work by exposing endpoints that publish the language used to build an application, allowing other developers to retrieve data from one application and host it in another. There are two main types of APIs: REST APIs which use HTTP URLs and support multiple response formats like JSON, and SOAP APIs which rely solely on XML format. The Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform uses multiple APIs to allow its different components to interact, integrating both internal FAO data and external data accessed via APIs from other digital services and applications.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    You are on page 1of 4

    Application Programming Interface (API) – Everything you need to know

    2022
    FAO Agroinformatics | New CSI documentation on APIs for web

    The ABCs of APIs – Everything you need to know

    What is an API?

    API stands for Application Programming Interface (API) – and the keyword here is interface. In
    other words, APIs allow two or more digital applications or services to share data and
    information. Most people use APIs everyday without knowing it. Each time you use an app on
    your phone or computer, you are using an API to send data and/or information from one app to
    another.

    How does an API work?

    When developers decide to make some of their data available to the public, they expose
    endpoints – essentially, they publish a portion of the language they’ve used to build their
    program. This allows other developers to pull or retrieve data from the application and host it in
    another application entirely.

    For this reason, if data is made available to the public, commonly referred to as open data -
    anyone can access the data using an API call which allows you to retrieve a piece of data - or
    resource - using a specific URL from one digital application or service to another, allowing the
    receiving application to show the data or information in their application.

    Quick terminology crash course: an API call sends a specific request – usually using a URL
    – that pulls or retrieves the resource (the requested data or information) and when the
    requested resource is sent back, it is called a response. This is how two separate web
    applications or services communicate using APIs.

    How are APIs used in the Hand-in-Hand (HiH) Geospatial Platform?

    The HiH Geospatial Platform heavily relies on communication between multiple APIs to allow
    different components to interact with each other, resulting in the numerous services available to
    users.

    This includes API requests from existing FAO digital applications and services that host
    numerous subregional, regional and global data and information as well as API requests from
    non-FAO digital applications – these are often referred to as external API requests.
    External API requests are a key component of the HiH Geospatial Platform because they allow
    FAO developers to integrate data and information from existing digital services, already hosted
    somewhere on the web – and make them available in one place.

    Time to get more technical – are there different kinds of APIs?

    Yes, there are two main kinds of APIs. The most common open API architectures fall into two
    categories: REST APIs and SOAP APIs.

    Learning about SOAP and REST APIs may seem more technical or more complex at first
    glance, but just remember that they exist to minimize confusion when assessing existing
    resources and how easy they are to integrate or note depending on what kind of API is being
    used.

    SOAP API vs REST API

    Representational State Transfer – or REST API still enables two digital applications to talk to
    each other, yet adds a component of order to the whole system. These rules are set out by the
    REST architectural style and serve to create standard protocols for what APIs should look like
    when they are created by developers. An example of one of these rules is that you should
    always be able to pull data and information by linking to a specific HTTP URL – no matter where
    you are in the world or on the web.

    You can find REST-based Web services that output the data in many different formats:
    Command Separated Value (CSV), JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) and Really Simple
    Syndication (RSS). The benefit of REST APIs is that they offer multiple response formats and
    this makes it easier to integrate data and information from two different web applications.

    On the other hand, Simple Object Access Protocol – or SOAP API relies solely on one format
    to send and retrieve data and information from other web applications. This format is XML.

    Standardization and Data Protocols

    Now that we know the ABCs of APIs, there are also important protocols to adhere into in the IT
    community. These serve to standardize the way a service may consume or produce messages
    or information shared with other services.

    One example of this is the seamless integration in the HiH Geospatial Platform of
    GoogleEarthEngine (GEE) maps due to the OpenGIS Web Map Tile Service (WMTS)
    implementation standard. The HiH Geospatial Platform makes use of these standard geospatial
    protocols to simplify all back-end interactions and data integrations.
    Additional links:

    ★ Standard geospatial protocols: Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC).


    ★ OpenAPIs vs Swagger:
    https://smartbear.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-swagger-and-openapi/
    ★ Swagger OpenAPI specifications https://swagger.io/specification/

    Disclaimer

    Links to other websites are provided for the user's convenience only and do not constitute endorsement
    by FAO of material at those sites, any associated organization, product or service.

    You might also like