Understanding REST

At the heart of Credit Bank Konnect APIs is the design philosophy of Representational State Transfer (REST). These principles, coupled with the JSON data format for requests and responses, make our APIs easy to use, flexible, and highly functional.

Whether you're crafting your custom checkout or interacting with our APIs for your mobile apps, understanding REST APIs is invaluable. These tools offer significant capabilities and, through our design, are straightforward and intuitive to use.

Our REST APIs are designed with simplicity and predictability in mind. Standard HTTP response codes provide a clear, straightforward understanding of any API errors. This design allows you to interact securely with the API from any client-side web or mobile application. For more detailed information on specific endpoints, their parameters, and response data formats, explore our API explorer.

All our APIs require authentication to ensure security and data integrity.

Our approach is pragmatic and developer-centric. We prioritize making our APIs as developer-friendly as possible over strict adherence to design principles. Our focus is on your success as a developer using our APIs, and our guides and API references aim to make integration with our platform as simple as possible. We gauge our success by how quickly and seamlessly developers can integrate and leverage our products.

Six Guiding Principles

Inherent to REST APIs are six key principles and architectural constraints. For a deeper understanding of REST APIs, refer to the section on Resources.

Client-Server

This principle separates the user interface from the server-side application. This separation allows for greater portability and flexibility across various platforms.

Stateless

Every request from a client to a server must contain all the information needed to understand and process the request. In essence, the server should not store anything between requests, and sessions must be maintained on the client side.

Cacheable

In REST, the server explicitly defines whether the client can store responses for future use or not, enhancing efficiency and responsiveness.

Uniform Interface

Four main constraints establish the uniformity of the interface:- Identification of resources

  • Identification of resources
  • Manipulation of resources through representations
  • Self-descriptive messages
  • Hypermedia as the engine of application state (HATEOAS)

Layered System

Each layer of an API cannot "see" beyond the immediate layer with which it interacts. This ensures that each part of the path in an API operates independently of the others.

Code on Demand

Optionally, servers can temporarily extend or customize the functionality of a client by transferring executable code (such as applets).

GET, POST, PATCH, DELETE

Our APIs are HTTPS-based, and data is sent and received securely over SSL. To retrieve data from the API, use a GET request. To submit, change, or destroy data, use a POST. A DELETE request is accepted for data removal.

Resources

Below are some resources that we recommend for you to learn more about APIs and RESTful principles:

REST API Tutorial https://www.restapitutorial.com/ Understanding and Using REST APIs - Smashing Magazine https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2018/01/understanding-using-rest-api/ Explaining REST to Damien Katz - Dare Obasanjo's weblog http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/2008/08/17/ExplainingRESTToDamienKatz.aspx REST - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Representational_state_transfer Architectural Styles and the Design of Network-based Software Architectures - a thesis by Roy Fielding https://www.ics.uci.edu/~fielding/pubs/dissertation/top.htm