Can you explain what an 'idempotent request' means and why it is important in API development?

An idempotent request is a request to an API that can be performed multiple times in a row without changing the result after the first call.

For example, if you send an update request (PUT), repeated identical requests should not further change the server state.

This is important for the reliability and predictability of the API, especially in network conditions where requests may be repeated due to failures or timeouts.

Example: if a DELETE request deletes a resource, a subsequent DELETE of the same resource should return a successful response without causing errors or changes.