Api Integration Services

An Application Programming Interface (API) is a particular set of rules and specifications that a software program can follow to access and make use of the services and resources provided by another particular software program that implements that API. It serves as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction, similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers.

• An API is an abstraction that describes an interface for the interaction with a set of functions used by components of a software system. The software providing the functions described by an API is said to be an implementation of the API.

An API can be:

• General, the full set of an API that is bundled in the libraries of a programming language, e.g. Standard Template Library in C++ or Java API.
• Specific, meant to address a specific problem, e.g. Google Maps API or Java API for XML Web Services.
• Language-dependent, meaning it is only available by using the syntax and elements of a particular language, which makes the API more convenient to use.
• Language-independent, written so that it can be called from several programming languages. This is a desirable feature for a service-oriented API that is not bound to a specific process or system and may be provided as remote procedure calls or web services, how they can use it.

API may be used to refer to a complete interface, a single function, or even a set of APIs provided by an organization. Thus, the scope of meaning is usually determined by the context of usage.