If you are a full stack developer, or a front-end developer who develops client server interactions, it is highly important that you should know how a REST API works and what all components are there with it.

In simple words, a RESTful API is a server API that is built using REST architecture.

REST stands for Representative State Tranfer, it is an architecture on which such APIs can be built and exposed for consumption.

Generally we expose such APIs over HTTP/S, where the requests are transmitted over the network via TCP/IP.

A client builds a HTTP Request and sends to the RESTful API, which returns a HTTP Response.

A simple HTTP Request contains the following parts -

A HTTP Verb, that describes what type of operation it is - GET, POST etc

URL of the API endpoint where you want to send the request.

HTTP Request Headers which describe the metadata information about the request. For example, a ContentType header with value application/json indicates that the request body contains JSON data

Finally the actual Request Body that has the content to be transmitted, or an empty body when there is nothing to send.

On the server side, the endpoint that is listening for such requests, receives this request, understands what is to be done based on the Verb and the Headers and processes it followed by response.

That's a simple introduction to the anatomy of a HTTP Request and the RESTful architecture.

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Hello there 👋, I'm Sriram Kumar Mannava

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