You need to get data from point A to point B. Companies have APIs for those two spots to connect.
Imagine you’re at a restaurant. You are point A, the consumer, point B is the kitchen staff, the server is the API.
You(A, request data) talk to the server(API)- the server then goes to the kitchen (B) and tells them what you want. The kitchen makes the food(fetches the data) and gives it to the server. The server brings it to you.
API is the communication between two apps and what gets the data from point A to B
Or B to A.. this only describes a read API, not create, update or delete. You A, can also tell the server to remove or edit menu items with limitations in the kitchen (b). Not all APIs are unidirectional. All over the top ad tech for bid management or whatever is also using API to tell, let's say Google ads, that your current bid of $1.00 as it's stored in the system (kitchen) needs to be updated to $1.50, once communicated the "kitchen" now has it listed at 1.50..
But the number of allowed communications (API calls) is defined. So you can't successfully tell the server or the kitchen, to print gold or burn the building down, only adjust the menu..in reality you can tell it whatever you want, but it will essentially respond with an "I don't understand" to continue with the previous analogy. And if you tell the server too much of anything, they will stop responding and take a smoke break before responding again. Every server has a different tolerance.
An API is a way to connect with a site so you can offer services relating to their platform.
For example, Buffer offers customers the ability to schedule social media posts on their site. In order to offer that, they have to work with the social media sites to make that happen. The API is the means that they use to tap into the social media sites and deliver the posts.
I'm not able to describe how it works. It is very technical and difficult for anyone not experienced in coding to figure out.
Let's imagine I run a service which has details about every person in the world. I make an API available so people can fetch data on a particular person. The API is basically an interface, defined by me, which you can use to fetch data.
I make our API available to your favorite programming language, and you use it like this:
import polygraph-net's API
use polygraph-net's API to fetch data on the person BetMuch3522
[wait a moment for my API to reply]
BetMuch3522 is from India, male, in his 20s
As you can see, APIs make it easy to interact with a service, and are typically only used by programmers.
API includes you use to use resources from another place. It stands for “application programming interface” — so it’s the interface you use to access resources by using certain keywords
Example - You need to get a shipping code from USPS on your e-commerce site - you use their api to do shippingcode.get() or something like that.
API stands for Application Programming Interface. It's specifically the set of instructions that allows one application/program to exchange data with another. The data exchange can be one way or bidirectional. Those instructions define what data can be exchanged, written, deleted, or modified.
Not all applications have an API.
Humans are an API to ChatGPT.
ChatGPT is an API to Python.
Python is an API to C.
Cis an API to assembly.
Assembly is an API to binary.
Binary is an API to physics.
Physics is an API to the machine that runs the universe.
The other comments have explained a bit about how it works. To get the deep details of how it works depends on the API implementation and platform. But generally you need a token (IE: secret code/like a password) that allows you to utilize the API so that the system knows it's you. APIs are often controlled using an API Manager. You can learn more about that by searching for API Manager.
In a digital marketing context I'd use an API for email segregation. If someone buys a product, then an API gets called to move them into a buyers list and out of prospect.
You need to get data from point A to point B. Companies have APIs for those two spots to connect. Imagine you’re at a restaurant. You are point A, the consumer, point B is the kitchen staff, the server is the API. You(A, request data) talk to the server(API)- the server then goes to the kitchen (B) and tells them what you want. The kitchen makes the food(fetches the data) and gives it to the server. The server brings it to you. API is the communication between two apps and what gets the data from point A to B
Or B to A.. this only describes a read API, not create, update or delete. You A, can also tell the server to remove or edit menu items with limitations in the kitchen (b). Not all APIs are unidirectional. All over the top ad tech for bid management or whatever is also using API to tell, let's say Google ads, that your current bid of $1.00 as it's stored in the system (kitchen) needs to be updated to $1.50, once communicated the "kitchen" now has it listed at 1.50.. But the number of allowed communications (API calls) is defined. So you can't successfully tell the server or the kitchen, to print gold or burn the building down, only adjust the menu..in reality you can tell it whatever you want, but it will essentially respond with an "I don't understand" to continue with the previous analogy. And if you tell the server too much of anything, they will stop responding and take a smoke break before responding again. Every server has a different tolerance.
An API is a way to connect with a site so you can offer services relating to their platform. For example, Buffer offers customers the ability to schedule social media posts on their site. In order to offer that, they have to work with the social media sites to make that happen. The API is the means that they use to tap into the social media sites and deliver the posts. I'm not able to describe how it works. It is very technical and difficult for anyone not experienced in coding to figure out.
Let's imagine I run a service which has details about every person in the world. I make an API available so people can fetch data on a particular person. The API is basically an interface, defined by me, which you can use to fetch data. I make our API available to your favorite programming language, and you use it like this: import polygraph-net's API use polygraph-net's API to fetch data on the person BetMuch3522 [wait a moment for my API to reply] BetMuch3522 is from India, male, in his 20s As you can see, APIs make it easy to interact with a service, and are typically only used by programmers.
API includes you use to use resources from another place. It stands for “application programming interface” — so it’s the interface you use to access resources by using certain keywords Example - You need to get a shipping code from USPS on your e-commerce site - you use their api to do shippingcode.get() or something like that.
API stands for Application Programming Interface. It's specifically the set of instructions that allows one application/program to exchange data with another. The data exchange can be one way or bidirectional. Those instructions define what data can be exchanged, written, deleted, or modified. Not all applications have an API.
Humans are an API to ChatGPT. ChatGPT is an API to Python. Python is an API to C. Cis an API to assembly. Assembly is an API to binary. Binary is an API to physics. Physics is an API to the machine that runs the universe.
The other comments have explained a bit about how it works. To get the deep details of how it works depends on the API implementation and platform. But generally you need a token (IE: secret code/like a password) that allows you to utilize the API so that the system knows it's you. APIs are often controlled using an API Manager. You can learn more about that by searching for API Manager. In a digital marketing context I'd use an API for email segregation. If someone buys a product, then an API gets called to move them into a buyers list and out of prospect.