Preparations

Why and when use APIs?

Be brave!

You’ll encounter terminology and abbreviations that make no sense, and that’s ok!

Terminology

Summary

Why & when APIs?

URL

The address. You have a home address. The API has its home address on the internet.
Just like websites. Example: https://api.46elks.com/a1/SMS

Request

  • GET Ask for data.
  • POST Send in data. Trigger an event.

help!?

  • Contact those providing the API!
  • Stackoverflow to the rescue!
  • People! Go to meetups, hackathons, explore forums... when you have friends you can help them out, and they can help you out!
  • You can also search for API reference manual, API documentation, API docs or API manual to find more information as well.

Status codes

  • 200 All is well.
  • 404 Can't find what you're looking for!
  • 20x OK!
  • 30x Somewhere else!
  • 40x You're not doing it right.
    Check the documentation/manual/instruction. Ask for help!
    Example: https://46elks.com/thispagedoesnotexist - 404.
  • 50x We made a mistake! Perhaps you might want to let us know! Or try again later!
  • http cat is a good place to find your current status code

Authentication

  • Credentials
  • API key
  • Basic auth

Format

json


        


        

XML


        

Want to try more languages?

You can find more examples in many different programming languages available on GitHub or our tutorials here