What is RESTful?

REST (Representational State Transfer) is an architectural style and a set of principles for designing networked applications. RESTful services follow these principles, using standard HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to interact with resources.

Key principles of REST:

• Client-Server: Separation of concerns between client and server to improve scalability and portability.
• Stateless: The server does not store client state between requests. Each request contains all necessary information.
• Cacheable: Responses can be be cached to improve performance.
• Uniform Interface: Use of standard HTTP methods and unified ways of identifying resources.
• Layered System: Architecture can be built on a hierarchy of layers, where each layer does not "see" beyond its immediate neighbor.
• Code-On-Demand (optional): The server can temporarily extend client functionality by transferring executable code (e.g., JavaScript).

Advantages of RESTful services:

• Simplicity and ease of understanding.
• Scalability.
• Independence from client and server technology.
• Use of standard protocols.

Example RESTful URLs:

/api/users - Get list of users (GET)
/api/users/123 - Get user with ID 123 (GET)
/api/users - Create a new user (POST)
/api/users/123 - Update user with ID 123 (PUT)
/api/users/123 - Delete user with ID 123 (DELETE)