Discovering the API
Shopify offers an extensive API that allows developers to perform almost any task that can be done via the web admin (and a few that don't like working with Metafields). The full documentation is available at http://api.shopify.com.
The API is RESTful and supports HTTP, JSON, and XML requests. There are several free software libraries available for most of the popular web development languages to help people get started. The libraries are actively supported either by Shopify or the open source community.
In this book, we will only be scratching the surface of the API by focusing on the areas of order retrieval, product management, and application charges. The API allows you to do much more—from modifying the store's themes, setting up shipping charges, to retrieving information about abandoned carts in order to follow up with the shopper.
We'll be working with the following API verticals:
Application charge
Product
Order
Webhook
