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An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. [1] A document or standard that describes how to build such a connection or interface is called an API specification.
API writers typically possess a mix of programming and language skills; many API writers have backgrounds in programming or technical writing. Computer programming background (Knowledge of C, C++, Java, PHP, or other programming languages) Knowledge of formatting standards like Doxygen, Javadoc, OpenAPI, or DITA; Knowledge of editors and tools ...
Although this API can be called by an end user with a web browser (as in this example) it is intended to be called automatically by software or by computer programmers while writing software. JSON is intended to be parsed by a computer program, which would extract the URL of the photograph and the other metadata. The resulting photo could be ...
API description languages are sometimes called interface description languages (IDLs). The structured description might be used to generate documentation for human programmers ; such documentation may be easier to read than free-form documentation, since all documentation generated by the same tool follows the same formatting conventions.
Examples of these include Search, Gmail, Translate or Google Maps. Third-party apps can use these APIs to take advantage of or extend the functionality of the existing services. The APIs provide functionality like analytics, machine learning as a service (the Prediction API) or access to user data (when permission to read the data is given).
An open API (often referred to as a public API) is a publicly available application programming interface that provides developers with programmatic access to a (possibly proprietary) software application or web service. [1] Open APIs are APIs that are published on the internet and are free to access by consumers. [2]
API Writers are very well accomplished towards writing good user documents as they would be well aware of the software architecture and programming techniques used. See also technical writing. User documentation can be produced in a variety of online and print formats. [2] However, there are three broad ways in which user documentation can be ...
The term "fluent interface" was coined in late 2005, though this overall style of interface dates to the invention of method cascading in Smalltalk in the 1970s, and numerous examples in the 1980s. A common example is the iostream library in C++ , which uses the << or >> operators for the message passing, sending multiple data to the same ...