- [Instructor] Before we actually start building
our back end and API,
let's cover some quick basics around a RESTful API,
what it is and how we're going to build
our application around it.
Keep in mind this is a quick overview
of what a RESTful API is
and if you need a deep understanding take a look at
Learning RESTful APIs in our library.
Also feel free to skip this video
if you're fairly familiar with the subject.
So, in a nutshell a RESTful API is a way to transact
with a back end using HTTP transactions.
We use a series of calls like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE
with an HTML address to transact
with our back end and its data.
So when a front end client, web, or mobile
needs to do transactions with a back end,
it makes a call, like for example GET,
with an API end point that looks like an HTML URL.
And the API responds with a success or a failure
with data if need be.
We use GET calls to pull the data from a back end.
Then, if we need to add new data we use POST.
Next, if we need to update the data we use PUT.
And finally, DELETE, well, if you need to delete data.
If you're really new to APIs and end points
and you're not quite grasping how these work,
I'll point out these items as we build our application
to make sure they make sense as we implement our API.