Imagine you are at your favorite tea stall. Instead of going behind the counter to make your tea yourself, you simply place your order with the server. The server understands your request, prepares your tea, and serves it to you.
An API (Application Programming Interface) works like that server. It acts as a bridge, allowing one software to interact with another. APIs simplify how we access, send, and use data from external services, databases, or even other applications.
Imagine there is a library of fun cat facts stored in a remote database. The owner of this database provides an API at the URL https://catfact.ninja/fact. By using this API, we can request a random cat fact and receive it in a simple, structured format.
Here’s an example of the response from the CatFact API:
The owner of the database created this API to make it easy for developers to access and use their data. Without this API, we would have to manually interact with the database, which would be more complex and less secure.
But APIs aren’t just about getting data. Just like you can place an order for tea at the stall, you can also send a request to change your order or even cancel it. Similarly, APIs allow us to send data to a server.