REST

REST is an architectural style for API design that is defined by six constraints. These constraints were first documented in Roy Fielding’s dissertation “Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Architectures”. The acronym REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer, which is foundational to this design architecture, the sharing of resources, or rather representations of those resources, across systems.

REST Constraints

• Uniform Interface: A constraint that governs the implementation of these interfaces, requiring the use of standard methods and identified resources.

• Layered System: This constraint requires that intermediary systems exist so that the API consumer is never interacting directly with the server.

• Cacheable: Requires that information regarding if a representation can be saved, and for how long, so that this cached version can be used for equivalent requests in the future.

• Client-Server Model: A separation of concerns model that prescribes an interface that is uniform and that does not share details of the implementation, otherwise known as abstraction and encapsulation in OOP.

• Statelessness: All information required to form a response must be available within the request (meaning that there is never any context information regarding the client saved between sessions).

• Code-On-Demand: This is an optional requirement that simply determines that code, such as JavaScript, within the document can be executed.