API

API (short for Application Programming Interface) is a specification that serves as an intermediary for software components to communicate with each other. An API may contain specifications for, for example, data structures, object classes, and variables. The API itself can take various forms.

The API could be divided into two categories:

• language-dependent
• language-independent

Language-dependent – these are APIs that can only be accessed if the syntax and elements of a particular language are used, making the API more convenient to use.

Language-independent – these APIs are written to be invoked from several different programming languages. Language-independent APIs are prevalent in web services – so the API is not tied to a specific process or system and can be invoked remotely. An example is a website that can display certain data on a map (e.g. user reviews). This is only possible because, for example, Google Maps has an API that allows this functionality.