The RESTful API
Representational State Transfer (REST) is designed to be used when web services connect systems together. As part of this, a conversation takes place between the two systems to determine common speeds to transfer data at, a common language both systems can understand, and status information such as when one system is ready to send or the other is ready to receive. In short, the two systems perform handshaking – the process of checking whether a system can receive information, managing the transfer of data using messages, and then closing the connection when the transfer is completed.
At its most basic form, a GET or POST JSON message to a web service would be a JSON message containing input parameters. The web service has an entry point in the form of a unique web address that the GET request or the POST message would be sent to.
Here is an example GET request with no parameters in the message. The following example can be used to test that the web service...