RESTful Web Service Fundamentals

In this chapter, we will go through the fundamentals of RESTful APIs (or REST APIs for short) and their design paradigms. We will take a brief look at the history of REST, learn how resources are formed, and understand methods and status codes before we move on to exploring Hypermedia As The Engine Of Application State (HATEOAS). These basics should provide a solid platform to enable you to develop a RESTful web service. You will also learn the best practices for designing application programming interfaces (APIs).

This chapter will also introduce a sample e-commerce app, which will be used throughout the book as you learn about the different aspects of API development.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• Introducing REST APIs
• Handling resources and Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs)
• Exploring Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) methods and status codes
• What is HATEOAS?
• Best practices for designing REST APIs
• Overview of an e-commerce app (our sample app)