REST API

A REST API (Representational State Transfer) is a style of web API where data is organised as resources identified by URLs, and clients act on them with standard HTTP methods: GET to read, POST to create, PUT or PATCH to update and DELETE to remove. Responses are usually JSON.

REST APIs are stateless, so every request carries what the server needs, such as an authentication token. They use HTTP status codes to report results and are easy to use from browsers, mobile apps and other servers, which makes them the most common way to build web APIs.

GET    /api/users        list users
GET    /api/users/42     get user 42
POST   /api/users        create a user
PUT    /api/users/42     replace user 42
PATCH  /api/users/42     update part of user 42
DELETE /api/users/42     delete user 42