REST Basic Definitions

What is REST ?

•  REST stands for  Representational State Transfer.

• REST is an architectural style which is based on web-standards and the HTTP protocol. 
• REST was first described by Roy Fielding in 2000.

• In a REST based architecture everything is a resource. A resource is accessed via a common interface based on the HTTP standard methods.

• In a REST based architecture you typically have a REST server which provides access to the resources and a REST client which accesses and modifies the REST resources.

• Every resource should support the HTTP common operations. Resources are identified by global IDs (which are typically URIs).

• REST allows that resources have different representations, e.g., text, XML, JSON etc. The REST client can ask for a specific representation via the HTTP protocol (content negotiation).