Developing a REST API that adheres to best practices is challenging. Software professionals use APIs for various reasons, but only some can create the best API. As a result of poorly written APIs that are causing security concerns among people, they must be addressed.
API Integration Service enable developers to communicate with data reflectively. The introduction of ease and comfort into the developer’s life can be achieved by providing a beautifully structured and designed API.
It is essential to understand that the critical point here is to design the REST APIs in a perfect manner. Unless the REST API is designed perfectly, developers may encounter problems rather than have an easy time using it.
Using REST API Best Practices will enable you to enhance your API writing skills when Designing Rest APIs. REST API designers should write an effective API to facilitate their work.
This article intends to demonstrate how easy it is to design REST APIs that are easy to use for anyone who consumes them, future-proof, secure, and fast since they serve confidential data to their clients.
About REST API
The REST API is a set of rules through which an application and a service can communicate using some rules and protocols. A REST API refers to an API constrained to the REST architecture. Hence it is also called a RESTful API because it allows you to access web services flexibly without requiring much processing power.
What Are the Basic Features of Rest APIs?
Before we delve into the top practices for the development of a RESTful API, let’s take a moment to understand what makes a REST API unique:
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Easily readable and understandable
As an API is well designed, developers can work with it quickly and comfortably as it is easy to understand. As a result, they can remember the functions and resources associated with it.
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It is difficult to misuse
Having a sharp and clean API design, along with an execution and integration process that complies with your API requirements, can reduce the chances of writing incorrect code. In addition, it provides crucial feedback to the customer without imposing harsh instructions on them.
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Clearly and concisely stated
Having a comprehensive API promotes the development of apps that are protected from the data hazards revealed by you in your report. There are a lot of API developers who do not rush to create the whole API at the same time but instead work on the APIs that already exist.
The Best Practices For Designing Rest APIs
Bringing ease and smoothness in the lives of your API users is one of the most important things you can do, which is why you should follow the best REST API design practices to avoid slipping over your API’s syntax mess and causing the user to query the wrong API. To design a REST API that meets the needs of the modern user, you should follow the following practices:
Make Efficient use of Resource Nesting.
A resource nest is defined as a practice of nesting functions that have a hierarchical structure or are connected somehow. Nesting is one of the best practices for assembling logically coherent collections of resources to one level.
An online shop, for example, consists of orders and users within the same category, similar to a physical store. This ‘order’ is made by the ‘user,’ and this ‘order’ is owned by the ‘user.’
Systematic Documentation
The next best practice when it comes to REST APIs is to make sure to document all the solutions you provide methodically and logically. There is a need for proper documentation when it comes to utilizing frameworks, applications, or software applications. The purpose of this document is to act as a guide when troubleshooting a problem that may occur. Good API documentation should be precise and plain enough to be understood by people who need to be more technically savvy. Such systematic documentation will aid your users in understanding all aspects of the system, such as error handling, security, and authentication.
A REST API must accept and respond to JSON data.
Generally speaking, APIs are expected to accept JSON requests as the request payload and return JSON responses to the requester. The JSON format is an open and standardized format for transmitting data over the Internet. By modifying JavaScript, it can encode and decode JSON through APIs such as the Fetch API and other HTTP clients in a way that is analogous to JavaScript.Additionally, server-side technologies nowadays have libraries that can decode JSON, so you don’t have to worry about any hassles.
Keeping Resource Nesting to a Minimum
Resource nesting is a helpful way to pair two functions with the same hierarchy or are closely related. An excellent example of a resource similar to orders and users is an online store, where you can find both in the same category.
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/users //list all users /users/xyz //specific user /users/xyz/orders //User-specific orders /users/xyz/orders/0001 //List of specific orders for a particular user |
A nesting strategy is an effective way of ensuring that the right resources are paired together. As a result, it is often overused by developers, which decreases its appeal.
Furthermore, it produces complex dependencies that need to be comprehended by a simple developer or user. In this regard, nesting resources efficiently is one of the best practices when developing a REST API.
Ensuring the security of API endpoints
Unless your API endpoints are publically accessible and don’t require users to log in any time they access them, you’ll need to implement some form of authentication and authorization to protect your REST API Security.
Authentication is verifying a user’s identity and verifying a user’s username, password, and access token to prove their legitimacy. A user is assigned a particular set of privileges and rights according to the authorizations granted to them.
A clear policy should be implemented by you so that you can grant or deny access to the various resources that your API endpoints contain.
Alternatively, if you want a more advanced feature, you can assign privileges to API users and use roles to assign them roles and permissions.
Data Filtering Options
It will be very challenging to manage the database in the future when it evolves into a much larger one. In this large database, it is challenging to retrieve only the data that is required. It is not desirable to expose the entire database when retrieving data.
This can be accomplished by using a filter to retrieve data that meets the required criteria. When data is filtered while being retrieved, huge amounts of bandwidth are saved at the end of the client when the data is retrieved.
The REST API provides four types of filtering options. There are several options for filtering the REST API:
Filtering
By using this method, you will be able to filter results so that they meet your requirements. To accomplish this, you can include search parameters such as country, creation date, etc.
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ET /users?country=UK GET /users?creation_date=2021-10-11 GET /users?creation_date=2021-10-11 |
Sorting
This option will allow you to sort your results ascendingly or descendingly, depending on your preference.
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GET /users?sort=birthdate_date:asc GET /users?sort=birthdate_date:desc |
Paging
When you use the ‘limit’ option, you can narrow down the list of results to the number you require. In addition, you are also able to use the offset property of the search to show only a part of the overall results.
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GET /users?limit=120 GET /users?offset=3 |
Field Selection
To display a specific part of the data available for that object, you can use the field selection function to request that this be displayed. It is also possible to specify the fields in the response of a query that uses an object with many fields. Objects will consist of fields such as ‘Name,’ ‘Birthdate,’ ‘Surname, ‘Email,’ and ‘Phone.’
In the case of a particular user:
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GET/ users/123?fields=name, birthdate,email |
The following is for a complete list of users:
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GET/ users?fields=name,birthdate,email |
Conclusion
In this article, we have discussed some best practices you can use to design a rest API that meets your needs. Follow this best practice to create an API that is simple to use, well-documented, and capable of enduring for years. However, considering best API Testing Tools would be more attractive to developers and have a greater chance of success.