Introduction to REST APIs for Absolute Beginners

Explore the essentials of http as the foundation for working with APIs. Practice understanding http messages with hands-on exercises in Postman.

Explore how http messages are structured, including url, request method (get or post), headers, and body, and how responses use status codes, headers, and body.

Explore the Http request methods—get, post, put, and delete—and see how each method expresses the client's intent to create, retrieve, update, or cancel data.

Explore Postman, a free, cross-platform tool for crafting http requests, testing APIs, and understanding http basics. Install the app, create an account, and start sending requests to different servers.

Explore query parameters, their structure in urls and the query string, with examples of name-value pairs, mandatory versus optional parameters, and how apis use them to filter searches.

Explore path parameters and path variables in REST APIs, learn how they differ from query parameters, and see practical examples using openlibrary.org and Postman.

Explore how http headers carry metadata in requests and responses, including cache control and language preferences, and learn with Postman examples to inspect headers.

Learn how the content-type header signals the data format in requests and responses, guiding Postman and clients to parse HTML, JSON, or XML correctly.

Learn how http headers secure api access, focusing on the authorization header and bearer tokens, with practical tests using httpbin and Postman to obtain 200 versus 401 responses.

Explore how cookies work in http headers, including set-cookie and cookie headers, and why browsers store small data to recognize returning clients.

Explore how the http body carries request and response content, as json or xml, and why post, put, or patch include a body while get does not, with content-type signaling.

Understand how http status codes indicate request outcomes and guide client behavior, focusing on 200/201 successes, 400/401/403/404 client errors, 500 server errors, and the rarity of 1xx and 3xx codes.

Understand the structure of the http message and how you can influence it, building a foundation for APIs. Expand your http knowledge with additional examples and APIs throughout the course.

Explore REST APIs, their design theory, and key terms like resources and endpoints, and learn to read Swagger or Postman documentation while practicing hands-on API concepts.

Explore representational state transfer as an architectural style for building APIs, outlining its rules, non-standard nature, and how REST concepts describe representing objects and transferring them between client and server.

Explore what a resource is in REST APIs, from menus and pizzas to orders and customers, identified by URLs and endpoints, with HTTP methods like GET and POST.

Explore a simple car fleet management API through hands-on exercises that cover car resources, repairs, and fleet statistics like the average age to understand REST APIs.

Learn JSON as a key-value data format and open standard for exchanging data between different systems, using strings, numbers, arrays, and nested objects, with language independence.

Explore how api documentation communicates endpoints, resources, and http methods, with formats such as html, pdf, swagger, postman collections, and openapi, and distinguish public from private apis.

Explore how Swagger, now Open API, describes REST APIs through a machine-readable specification and Swagger UI, detailing endpoints, models, and operations for car fleet management.

Learn how to create a get request to fetch all cars from a car fleet management API, use try it out and Postman, and view JSON responses.

Learn to construct a get request with a path parameter to fetch a single car, handle not found 404 cases, and test with Postman and Swagger.

Complete this assignment by practicing with swagger and postman to get the endpoints /cars, car ID repairs, and /cars/{carId}/repairs and /cars/{carId}/repairs/{repairId} to work.

Explore getting REST API data with Swagger and Postman via car id and repair id path parameters to fetch repairs and detailed repair information.

Learn how to write valid json by using double quotes for strings, proper commas, and matched braces in nested objects, and use Postman and online validators to ensure parsable requests.

Post a JSON car object to the /cars endpoint using Swagger and Postman, testing creation and observing the server return the new car with an ID.

Explore common API errors in Postman, including incorrect paths, case sensitivity, JSON field names, missing commas, and valid JSON formatting, with practical tips to diagnose and fix them.

Engage in hands-on practice by using two endpoints to add a new car repair. Craft the request body, consult the documentation, and understand how APIs work rather than just replicating.

Learn to add repairs to cars using post requests with json bodies, exploring endpoints /cars/repairs and /cars/{car_id}/repairs, and understanding when to place car ids in the url or body.

Explore when to use get versus post for retrieving or creating data, including parameter types and JSON bodies, and learn how caching speeds REST API responses with an in-memory cache.

Use the put method to update an existing car by sending the full data, including the ID, to the /cars endpoint; post may update in APIs, but put is preferred.

Clarify post and put in REST APIs by contrasting create vs update, noting post often creates data without an identifier, while put requires an id to locate and update it.

Practice deleting unnecessary database entries using the proper HTTP delete method guided by the API documentation.

Delete specific cars by sending http delete requests to /cars/{id} and observe 200 responses; repairs lack a delete endpoint, and bulk deletes are not allowed.

Define CRUD as create, read or retrieve, update, and delete, and map these http methods to database operations within Postman, organizing requests into a dedicated crud folder.

Learn how HTTP methods work within REST APIs, why there are no universal rules, and how API documentation guides proper endpoint usage and method conventions.

Explore how to use an API that allows uploading files, recognizing formats beyond json or xml, such as documents, images, or videos.

Register a Giphy account and create an app to access the API, learn via the quick start guide, and use Postman with an API key for requests.

Learn to search for gifs with the Jiffy API by using the search endpoint, supplying a queue parameter and API key via query parameters in Postman.

Create a Giphy collection and retrieve a gif via the get gif by ID endpoint. Explore the response metadata and images for the selected gif.

Practice uploading data by converting a short video into a gif, using an online service, then save the gif locally; the exercise is optional and shareable in the Q&A.

Learn to upload a gif to Giphy using Postman by calling the upload endpoint with form data, including a file, api key, and tags, and view the response id.

Identify the endpoint address to access the uploaded gif and retrieve it so we can view the image and have some fun.

retrieve a single gif using its id via the get single gif endpoint, upload a gif, copy its id, and fetch the gif data with existing endpoints.

Learn to clean up after we are done using Jiffy by deleting the app in the dashboard, removing uploaded gifs on Giphy, and deleting your account and data through settings.

Conclude the course by verifying lecture completion and earning your certificate. Share your experience by leaving a review to help others.