Can you explain me the concept of API?

Question

I can't understand the concept with all this time studying over and over . explain me with real life application.

Answer 1

An API provides a contact point for you to access content or functionally from other providers. For example if you wanted to show me my emails from my Outlook account you need a way to collect my emails from the outlook server. The outlook REST API provides this contact point for you to authenticate my login details and load my emails.
Hope this helps.

Answer 2

An API (Application Programming Interface) provides an interface for your application to access the features of another service or the OS itself.

For example: you can use the API of a weather service in your application to access the current weather provided by that particular service.
Another example, Electron provides a set of APIs that enable a web app to access the OS features (notifications, window managing, etc).
Similarly, Phonegap allows you to create mobile applications with web technologies. To enable the web application to access the components of the device (camera, sensors, gps) it provides the relevant APIs which enables the app to access those particular components.

Answer 3

PHP offers three different APIs to connect to MySQL. Below we show the APIs provided by the mysql, mysqli, and PDO extensions. Each code snippet creates a connection to a MySQL server running on "example.com" using the username "user" and the password "password". And a query is run to greet the user.

see reference link below for more

http://php.net/manual/en/mysqlinfo.api.choosing.php

Answer 4

in simple words API is a broker/agent in between the system and data provider.

Answer 5

API: Application program interface provide methods to access and utilize the functionality of the service.

Answer 6

super super short.... think of them as... libraries of code

Answer 7

Hello Kumar.
An API, Application Programming Interface, is a framework or system used by usually large data providers. (but the concept can be done on a smaller scale). This allows the data or service providers to accept a request from a user and in turn supply the requested data or information.

A simple real life example is an API used by weather forecast sites. The sites or providers usually have the Metadata of all the locations. A programmer or an end user can request for the weather of a particular location at a particular time by supplying these details to the API provided by the weather service. With this info the weather service will search their massive database and return the relevant data to the end user.

One common implementation of this is the REST API, please look it up.

Answer 8

An API lets you have limited access to the data servers of a certain provider and lets you use the information in those servers. e.g you can use the Twitter Api to get tweets and embed them in you application without having your users to go to twitter its self.

Answer 9

You might have seen in some websites such as Grocery store website or some Coffee​ store website, there will be some option, such as find us or find a store near you.

If you click on it, google maps open up with your location and their location pinned on that map.

So here comes the concept. Usually what those applications do is, they will use an API to use the services of other application (here, Google Maps) in their application (Coffee​ Shop Application). An example of this is Geolocation API of HTML5. So by these APIs, we can use the services of other application and let our work, done in a easier way. But to make our work done, we have to follow the procedures and use the functions that are specified in API.

Answer 10

API provides an interface to react with data in database and provides you a result that user requires

Answer 11

In a very simple way, it's like a 'translator' between the front-end (the website that you see) and the back-end (the program that runs and the user doesn't see, the code that 'does stuff')

Any information that the user inputs will be going through the API, and any information that the website dynamically displays will also go through the API.

User input (front-end, browser) --> API --> Server (back-end, scripts) --> API --> Browser

eg. The user inputs two numbers, the back-end adds them together and displays the result back in the browser

It's quite a simple explanation but I hope it helps :) This is how I've understood it anyway!

Answer 12

Application programming interface( API)
A simple daily life example:
if your mother tongue is Japanese and you want to talk to a person who's mother tongue is hindi. But you both know only your own language then the only solution you both have too find a translator (interface) which converts hindi into Japanese and vise versa....it is the simplest example I hope youB will get the answer. BEST OF LUCK to your coding journey :-)

Answer 13

An API (Application Programming Interface) provides an interface for your application to access the features of another service or the OS itself.

For example: you can use the API of a weather service in your application to access the current weather provided by that particular service.
Another example, Electron provides a set of APIs that enable a web app to access the OS features (notifications, window managing, etc).
Similarly, Phonegap allows you to create mobile applications with web technologies. To enable the web application to access the components of the device (camera, sensors, gps) it provides the relevant APIs which enables the app to access those particular components.

you can use function through api

Answer 14

API is basically some reusable code which is written by gurus of that field. Suppose if you have requirement to work on search, you can use pre developed APIs by Google or any other search provider rather than starting from scratch. By using existing APIs you avoid reinventing wheel. Similarly there are so many APIs available depending on requirements. Programming languages also bundle few APIs which are used by most of the developers.

Answer 15

The concept of API(Application Programming Interface ) is that it allows two software programs to communicate with each other.

APIs are made up of two related elements. The first is a specification that describes how information is exchanged between programs, done in the form of a request for processing and a return of the necessary data. The second is a software Interface written to that specification and published in some way for use.

Answer 16

What I don't understand about apis is how someone would go ahead and 'make their own api' for someone else's program. For instance to make 3rd party video game add-ons, I've seen people 'make their own api' for a certain game so that 3rd party programs can be made.

ie. Hearthstone, an online card game. Blizzard never released an api for Hearthstone, but someone out there 'created their own api' which people use to write add-ons. Most add-ons for this game float over the game window and let you know which cards are left in your deck as you draw each turn.

How does one go and make their own api for someone else's program that didn't release an api?

Answer 17

check out my game https://code.sololearn.com/WF65X6DEns7o/?ref=app

Answer 18

@Tamim: Best answer, don't know why so few upvotes.

EDIT:
I dunno why I was downvoted for pointing out a voting problem, guess sheeple are sheeple. Downvotes don't change the fact his answer was the best explanation of an API at the time & he had very few upvotes. I'm glad his answer has been upvoted, I'll consider it a righteous victory rather than a popularity one.
FYI: some of the stupid metaphors in this thread make me wanna cringe.

Answer 19

API means application programmer interface ...it is used to make compatiblity or solve issue in the operating systems or any software ....actually software is made up of many API . we use Unix API to run software in the Ubuntu,Kali ,debian , etc.
API is kind of tools to the programmer which shows standard to use them.

Answer 20

In simple words, API is a way to access services that made by third party and hosted on their servers. API builder provide restricted view or access to their system services.
By using API, we can build a system based on their services.
For example, I collect data about all platform games with live updates. Now someone need games data to display on their website. So rather than collecting data of games because it is expensive and time-consuming, he might interest in a service that provide him games data with live update. in this case,my data can solve his problem. So to provide him my data, API concept help me to tackle two things. first control and security over my collected data, and secondly provide restricted view to third person who want to use my data. By using my API he can get results with API calls.
In real world,Most common example is Google maps API. By which we can show Google map on our website .