Top REST API Development Techniques

An API can be described as a set of rules that find out how devices and apps connect and communicate with one another. The renowned tech-based companies such as Facebook, GitHub, and Netflix are the top companies in this show because they require their developers to exploit their data with the help of APIs.

The APIs help the developers to easily communicate with data. It is imperative to design REST APIs appropriately. Otherwise, they can create hurdles for developers and make it difficult to complete their tasks efficiently.

What is REST API?

REST API is an application programming interface and it is also popularly known as RESTful API. The Restful app programming interface is mostly accessed by the HTTPS communication protocol.          

 Its Key Features include: 

1. Easy to Read and View

The precisely designed API is quite easy to read; therefore developers can comfortably work with it. They can easily memorize its functions and resources while continuously working with it.

2. Reduce Probability of Wrong Code

It is possible to reduce the probability of wrong incorrect code by integrating and executing API with a clean and sharp design. In addition to this, it provides important feedback without giving tough instructions to the end customer.

3. Outright and To the Point

The APIs can help the developer to build the potential applications. Thus, most API developers don’t rush to quickly finish the entire project simultaneously but instead create on the existing APIs.

Useful REST API Development Techniques

If you want to ensure that the life of API users is simple and precise, then it is imperative to follow all the practices which are mentioned below.

1. Flawless and To the Point Documentation

You should have clear and concise documentation. Usually, documentation is automatically generated based on the API definition. Else, you must ensure that the documentation is in simple and easy-to-understand language for everyone out there.

Documentation is important so that the users can easily get to know about error management, security, and verification. Furthermore, it is important to provide engaging tutorials and guides. A complete guide helps users to easily use the API.

2. Utilizing JSON as a Data Format

One of the most extremely used data formats is JSON. Well, you can send data in various other formats as well like XML, CSV, and HTML.JSON syntax. All these syntaxes make it easy for humans to read the data without any difficulty. In addition to this, it is comprised of a wide range of arrays of supported browser compatibility.

3. API Versioning

API versioning lets the developers do the changes in the specific actions or data structure. You can easily handle various API versions if your project starts increasing with time. But the biggest benefit is that it lets the developers easily do various upgrades and changes in their service simultaneously holding a part of API users. The API users are quite slow in adopting the new changes.

Now, the question is where we should add the API version in the URL or header. On an academic basis, it should be included in the header. But, it should also be available in the REST API URL. It is important to ensure that the search of the browser across different versions should offer an outstanding experience to the developers.

Usually, API is not stable and it is variable as well. Well, you cannot avoid the changes, but you should check the various ways to deal with these kinds of changes.

4. Error Management

To eliminate the confusion for the API users, it is very important to smartly manage the errors. It will return the HTTP response codes which will tell the nature of the error. Plenty of data is accessed by the API maintainers to find out the source and reason for the error.

To ensure that your system is error-free, you should leave them unmanaged. Some basic error HTTP status codes are described below:

• 404 Not Found – It implies that the sources are not there.
• 403 Forbidden – It indicates that the specific user has no permission to use that resource even after getting verified.
• 401 Unauthorized – This error code indicated that the user is not authorized to use that resource. Usually, it returns when the user is not verified.
• 400 Bad Requests – The HTTP status code signified that client-side input has failed invalidation.
• 503 Service Unavailable – It indicates that something unwanted and unexpected has happened on the server-side like a system failure.
• 502 Bad Gateway – It signifies an invalid response from the server-side.  
• 500 Internal Server Error – This HTTP status code is quite a basic server error.

5. Upgrading API Security

There is one more great practice for creating APIs i.e. using the security frameworks such as SSL and TLS. The secure connection can be established by using the SSL certificate as they offer public and private keys. To protect sensitive information such as medical info, the secured and encrypted connection plays a vital role.

TLS is the advanced version of SSL that offers a high level of security and protection. One of the best practices to ensure a safe and secure API is doing regular testing. With the help of the two following tests, you can ensure a secure API:

• Penetrating Testing – In this test, the APIs are exposed to real cyber attacks to check their security level. During this test, the testers will check for vulnerabilities that hackers can use to their advantage.
• Fuzz Testing – It is an important test to check how APIs work when they receive invalid input. During this test, the testers check for flaws in the code.

Consequently, it is possible to prevent DoS (Denial of Service) attacks with rate limiting. By reducing the number of requests, it is possible to protect your API.

Final Words

We have already mentioned that implementing the best practices can help you to achieve your objectives in REST API development. Also, these practices can help to make your solution easy to use and safe. It is recommended to use an API platform for creating successful APIs.