ASP.NET Web API

 The term API stands for “Application Programming Interface”. ASP.NET Web API is a framework, provided by Microsoft, which makes it easy to build Web APIs, i.e. HTTP based services. The ASP.NET Web API is an ideal platform for building Restful services on top of the .NET Framework. These Web API services can be consumed by a variety of clients such as

1. Browsers
2. Mobile applications
3. Desktop applications
4. IOTs, etc.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that we can develop both Restful and Non-Restful Web Services using the ASP.NET Web API framework. But mostly this framework is used to create RESTful services. In short, this framework does not provide any specific architectural style for creating the services.

REST stands for Representational State Transfer. This is an architectural pattern used for exchanging data over a distributed environment. In Rest, there is something called Client and Server, and the data can be exchanged between the client and server over a distributed environment. Distributed environment means the client can be on any platform like Java, .NET, PHP, etc. and the server can also be on any platform like Java, .NET, PHP, etc. The REST architectural pattern treats each service as a resource and a client can access those resources by using HTTP Protocol methods such as GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE.

Here are the REST constraints.

1. Client-Server Constraint:

This is the first constraint. This constraint specifies that a Client sends a request to the server and the server sends a response back to the client. This separation of concerns supports the independent development of both client-side and server-side logic. That means client applications and server applications should be developed separately without any dependency on each other. A client should only know resource URIs and that’s all. 

2. Stateless Constraint:

The next constraint is the Stateless Constraint. The stateless constraint specifies that the communication between the client and the server must be stateless between requests. That means the server should not be storing anything on the server related to the client. The request from the client should contain all the necessary information so that the server can identify the client and can process that request. This ensures that each request can be treated independently by the server.

3. Cacheable Constraint:

In real-time applications, some data provided by the server is not changed that frequently like the list of Countries, the list of States,  the list of cities, and some master data. The Cacheable Constraint says that let the client know how long this data is good for so that the client does not have to come back to the server for that data over and over again.

4. Uniform Interface Constraint:

The Uniform Interface Constraint defines an interface between the client and the server. To understand the uniform interface constraint, first, we need to understand what a resource is and the HTTP verbs such as GET, PUT, POST, PATCH, and DELETE. In the context of a RESTFUL Service, resources typically represent data entities. The Product, Employee, Customer, Country, State, City, etc. are all resources. The HTTP verb (GET, PUT, POST, PATCH, and DELETE) that is sent with each request tells the API what to do with the resource. Each resource is identified by a specific URI (Uniform Resource Identifier).

5. Content Negotiation:

One of the constraints of the REST service is that the client should have the ability to decide in which format they want the response – whether they want the response in XML or JSON etc. This is called Content Negotiation

6. Layered System:

REST allows us to use a layered system architecture where we deploy the APIs in server A, store data on server B and authenticate requests in server C. For example, a client cannot ordinarily tell whether it is connected directly to the server or to an intermediary along the way.

HTTP Verbs or HTTP Methods

In Restful services, the HTTP Verbs identifies what type of operation, the service is going to be performed. GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE. are HTTP verbs.

ASP.NET Web API

1. It is a framework that helps us to develop HTTP Based services i.e. Restful Services.
2. Web API is an open-source platform.
3. It supports most of the MVC features which keep Web API over WCF.

WHY do we need it?

if we want to expose our data (business data) to the browsers as well as to all these modern devices apps in a fast, secure and simple way, then we should have an API that should be compatible with browsers as well as all these modern devices.

The ASP.NET WEB API is a great framework for building HTTP services that can be consumed by a broad range of clients including browsers, mobiles, iPhones, and tablets. 

Advantages of using ASP.NET Web API?

Using ASP.NET Web API has several advantages, but the core advantages are as follows:

1. It supports all the HTTP features. That means you can use all the built-in HTTP Heapers such as Content-Type, Accept, Authorization, etc. and HTTP Status codes such as 500, 200, 404, etc. and HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT, PATCH, and DELETE to perform CRUD operations
2. It supports Attribute Routing which is good for SEO as well as user-friendly URLs.
3. It supports content negotiation i.e. as per the client request, the server sends the response in that format (if possible). The Response generated in JSON or XML format using MediaTypeFormatter
4. It can be hosted in IIS as well as self-host outside of IIS
5. Supports Model Binding and Validation.