RESTful web services are web services that adhere to the principles of REST architecture. They provide an interface for interacting with resources over the web using standard HTTP methods. These services expose resources identified by URLs, and clients can perform various operations on these resources using HTTP methods such as GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc.
Key characteristics of RESTful web services include:
- Resource-based: Resources are identified by unique URLs (Uniform Resource Locators), and clients interact with these resources by sending HTTP requests to these URLs.
- Uniform Interface: RESTful APIs have a uniform interface, typically using standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to perform CRUD (Create, Read, Update, Delete) operations on resources. This simplifies the client-server interaction and makes the API easy to understand and use.
- Statelessness: RESTful web services are stateless, meaning each request from a client to the server must contain all the information necessary to understand and fulfill the request. The server does not store any client context between requests, which enhances scalability and reliability.
- Representation-oriented: Resources in RESTful web services can have multiple representations (e.g., JSON, XML, HTML), and clients can specify the desired representation using HTTP headers (e.g., Accept header).
- Self-descriptive messages: Messages exchanged between clients and servers in RESTful web services should be self-descriptive, meaning they include all the information needed to understand the message without additional context. This includes using appropriate HTTP status codes, headers, and media types.
- Hypermedia as the Engine of Application State (HATEOAS): This principle suggests that clients should navigate through the application by following hyperlinks dynamically provided by the server in the response. This allows for a more flexible and discoverable API.
RESTful web services are widely used for building distributed systems, microservices, and APIs due to their simplicity, scalability, and interoperability. They are commonly used for building web APIs that serve data to web and mobile applications.
