HTTP and REST

HTTP and REST

HTTP Basics

• Hypertext Transfer Protocol
• A stateless, application-layer protocol for communicating between distributed systems
• The foundation of the modern web
• Allows for communication between a variety of hosts and clients, and supports a mixture of network configurations
• To make this possible, it assumes very little about a particular system, and does not keep state between different message exchanges
• Communication between a host and a client occurs, via a request/response pair
  • The client initiates an HTTP request message, which is serviced through a HTTP response message in return
• The request message are sent via Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
• These request verbs are:
  • GET: fetch an existing resource
  • POST: create a new resource
    • POST requests usually carry a payload that specifies the data for the new resource.
  • PUT: update an existing resource
    • The payload may contain the updated data for the resource.
  • DELETE: delete an existing resource
• In return, the server responds with status codes and message payloads
  • 1xx: Informational Messages
  • 2xx: Successful
  • 3xx: Redirection
    • The most common use-case is to jump to a different URL in order to fetch the resource
  • 4xx: Client Error
  • 5xx: Server Error

Why Swagger API Documentation

Video

HTTP and Rest

Additional Resources:

• Swagger Documentation
• Swagger Editor
• HTTP Reference
• Rest Reference