What are the distinctive features of REST API and how do they differ from other types of APIs?

REST API (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style for creating web services based on the following principles:

• Use of standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) for resource operations.
• Resources are identified by unique URIs.
• Statelessness on the server side, each request contains all necessary information.
• Use of resource representations (e.g., JSON or XML).

Differences from other types of APIs:

• SOAP API, for example, is more formal, uses XML and complex protocols.
• REST is simpler and easier to use, well-suited for web applications.

Example of a REST request in Python using the requests library:

import requests
response = requests.get('https://api.example.com/users/1')
print(response.json())

Here, we request the user resource with id=1 via HTTP GET.