We will start learning web services with RESTful services because they are widely used and are easy to implement. REST is not necessarily a protocol but an architectural style, and is typically based on HTTP. RESTful web services act on resources on the server, and actions are based on HTTP methods (Get
, Post
, Put
, and Delete
). The state of resources is transferred over HTTP in either XML or JSON format, although JSON is more popular. Resources on the server are identified by URLs. For example, to get details of a course with ID 10
, you can use the HTTP GET
method with the following URL: http://<server_address>:<port>/course/10
. Notice that the parameter is part of the base URL. To add a new Course
or modify a Course
, you can use either POST
or PUT
methods. Furthermore, the DELETE
method can be used to delete a Course
by using the same URL as that used for getting the course, that is, http://<server_address>:<port>/course/10
.
Resource URLs in RESTful...