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).
