A RESTful service is a web service that adheres to the principles and constraints of REST (Representational State Transfer). REST is an architectural style for designing networked applications, and it relies on stateless communication and standard HTTP methods for operations.
Key characteristics of a RESTful service include:
Stateless: Each request from a client to the server must contain all the information needed to understand and process the request. The server does not store any state between requests.
Client-Server Architecture: The client and server are separate entities that communicate over HTTP. The client makes requests to the server, and the server responds with the necessary data.
Uniform Interface: RESTful services use a standard and consistent set of rules (HTTP methods) for interacting with resources. These methods include:
- GET: Retrieve data from the server.
- POST: Create a new resource on the server.
- PUT: Update an existing resource.
- DELETE: Remove a resource.
Resources: Everything in a RESTful service is considered a resource, which can be an object, data, or a service. These resources are identified using URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers).
Representation: The state of a resource is typically transferred as a representation (often in JSON or XML format). When a client requests a resource, it receives the resource's current state as a representation.
Stateless Communication: RESTful services don't store client context between requests. Each request is treated independently, and the server does not need to remember previous requests.
Cacheable: Responses from the server can be explicitly marked as cacheable or non-cacheable, which can help reduce network latency and improve performance.
In summary, a RESTful service is a simple, lightweight, and scalable way to enable communication between distributed systems using standard HTTP protocols. It's commonly used in web services, mobile applications, and APIs for client-server interactions.
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