An application programming interface (API) is a source code
Source code
In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...
based specification intended to be used as an interface by software components to communicate with each other. An API may include specifications for routines
Subroutine
In computer science, a subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code....
In computer science, a data structure is a particular way of storing and organizing data in a computer so that it can be used efficiently.Different kinds of data structures are suited to different kinds of applications, and some are highly specialized to specific tasks...
s, object classes, and variables.
An API specification can take many forms, including an International Standard such as Posix
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
or vendor documentation such as the Microsoft Windows API
Windows API
The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name "Windows API" more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on...
The Standard Template Library is a C++ software library which later evolved into the C++ Standard Library. It provides four components called algorithms, containers, functors, and iterators. More specifically, the C++ Standard Library is based on the STL published by SGI. Both include some...
C++ is a statically typed, free-form, multi-paradigm, compiled, general-purpose programming language. It is regarded as an intermediate-level language, as it comprises a combination of both high-level and low-level language features. It was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup starting in 1979 at Bell...
In computer software, an application binary interface describes the low-level interface between an application program and the operating system or another application.- Description :...
(Application Binary Interface) in that the former is source code based while the latter is a binary interface. For instance POSIX
POSIX
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
The Linux Standard Base is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system...
is an ABI.)
Language used
An API can be:
language-dependent, meaning it is only available by using the syntax and elements of a particular language, which makes the API more convenient to use.
language-independent, written so that it can be called from several programming languages. This is a desirable feature for a service-oriented
Service-orientation
Service-orientation is a design paradigm to build computer software in the form of services. Like other design paradigms , service-orientation provides a governing approach to automate business logic as distributed systems...
API that is not bound to a specific process or system and may be provided as remote procedure call
Remote procedure call
In computer science, a remote procedure call is an inter-process communication that allows a computer program to cause a subroutine or procedure to execute in another address space without the programmer explicitly coding the details for this remote interaction...
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
s. For example, a website that allows users to review local restaurants is able to layer their reviews over maps taken from Google Maps, because Google Maps has an API that facilitates this functionality. Google Maps' API controls what information a third-party site can use and how they can use it.
The term API may be used to refer to a complete interface, a single function, or even a set of APIs provided by an organization. Thus, the scope of meaning is usually determined by the context of usage.
Detailed explanation
An API may describe the ways in which a particular task is performed.
Procedural programming can sometimes be used as a synonym for imperative programming , but can also refer to a programming paradigm, derived from structured programming, based upon the concept of the procedure call...
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
the action is usually mediated by a function call.
Hence the API usually includes a description of all the functions/routines
Subroutine
In computer science, a subroutine is a portion of code within a larger program that performs a specific task and is relatively independent of the remaining code....
it provides.
For instance: the math.h include file for the C language
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
A function prototype in C, Perl or C++ is a declaration of a function that omits the function body but does specify the function's return type, name, arity and argument types...
s of the mathematical functions available in the C language library for mathematical processing (usually called libm).
This file describes how to use the functions included in the given library: the function prototype
Function prototype
A function prototype in C, Perl or C++ is a declaration of a function that omits the function body but does specify the function's return type, name, arity and argument types...
is a signature that describes the number and types of the parameters to be passed to the functions and the type of the return value.
The behavior of the functions is usually described in more details in a human readable format in printed books or in electronic formats like the man pages: e.g. on Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
systems the command
man 3 sqrt
will present the signature of the function sqrt in the form:
SYNOPSIS
#include
double sqrt(double X);
float sqrtf(float X);
DESCRIPTION
DESCRIPTION
sqrt computes the positive square root of the argument. ...
RETURNS
On success, the square root is returned. If X is real and positive...
That means that the function returns the square root of a positive floating point number (single or double precision) as another floating point number.
Hence the API in this case can be interpreted as the collection of the include files used by the C language and its human readable description provided by the man pages.
Documentation
Many program development environments provide the documentation associated with an API in some digital format, e.g. perl comes with the tool perldoc:
$ perldoc -f sqrt
sqrt EXPR
sqrt #Return the square root of EXPR. If EXPR is omitted, returns
#square root of $_. Only works on non-negative operands, unless
#you've loaded the standard Math::Complex module.
Pydoc is a documentation module for the programming language Python. Similar to the functionality of Perldoc within Perl, Pydoc allows Python programmers to access Python's documentation help files, generate HTML pages with documentation specifics, and find the appropriate module for a particular job...
:
$ pydoc math.sqrt
Help on built-in function sqrt in math:
math.sqrt = sqrt(...)
sqrt(x)
Return the square root of x.
ruby comes with the tool ri:
$ ri Math::sqrt
------------------------------------------------------------- Math::sqrt
Math.sqrt(numeric) => float
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Returns the non-negative square root of _numeric_.
Java comes with the documentation organized in html pages (JavaDoc
Javadoc
Javadoc is a documentation generator from Sun Microsystems for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code.The "doc comments" format used by Javadoc is the de facto industry standard for documenting Java classes. Some IDEs, such as Netbeans and Eclipse automatically generate...
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
distributes the API documentation for its languages (Visual C++
Visual C++
Microsoft Visual C++ is a commercial , integrated development environment product from Microsoft for the C, C++, and C++/CLI programming languages...
Visual Basic is the third-generation event-driven programming language and integrated development environment from Microsoft for its COM programming model...
, F#, etc...) embedded in Visual Studio's help system.
API in object-oriented languages
In object-oriented languages, an API usually includes a description of a set of class
Class (computer science)
In object-oriented programming, a class is a construct that is used as a blueprint to create instances of itself – referred to as class instances, class objects, instance objects or simply objects. A class defines constituent members which enable these class instances to have state and behavior...
definitions, with a set of behaviors associated with those classes. A behavior is the set of rules for how an object, derived from that class, will act in a given circumstance. This abstract concept is associated with the real functionalities exposed, or made available, by the classes that are implemented in terms of class methods (or more generally by all its public components hence all public methods, but also possibly including any internal entity made public, like fields, constants, nested objects, enums...).
The API in this case can be conceived as the totality of all the methods publicly exposed by the classes (usually called the class interface). This means that the API prescribes the methods by which one interacts with/handles the objects derived from the class definitions.
More generally, one can see the API as the collection of all the kinds of objects one can derive from the class definitions, and their associated possible behaviors. Again: the use is mediated by the public methods, but in this interpretation, the methods are seen as a technical detail of how the behavior is implemented.
In computer science, a stack is a last in, first out abstract data type and linear data structure. A stack can have any abstract data type as an element, but is characterized by only three fundamental operations: push, pop and stack top. The push operation adds a new item to the top of the stack,...
can simply expose publicly two methods push (to add a new item to the stack), and pop (to extract the last item, ideally placed on top of the stack).
In this case the API can be interpreted as the two methods pop and push, or, more generally, as the idea that one can use an item of type Stack that implements the behavior of a stack: a pile exposing its top to add/remove elements. The second interpretation appears more appropriate in the spirit of object orientation.
This concept can be carried to the point where a class interface in an API has no methods at all, but only behaviors associated with it. For instance, the Java language and Lisp (programming language) API include the interface Serializable, which requires that each class that implements it should behave in a serialized
Serialization
In computer science, in the context of data storage and transmission, serialization is the process of converting a data structure or object state into a format that can be stored and "resurrected" later in the same or another computer environment...
fashion. This does not require to have any public method, but rather requires that any class that implements it to have a representation that can be saved (serialized) at any time (this is typically true for any class containing simple data and no link to external resources, like an open connection to a file, a remote system, or an external device).
Similarly the behavior of an object in a concurrent (multi-threaded
Thread (computer science)
In computer science, a thread of execution is the smallest unit of processing that can be scheduled by an operating system. The implementation of threads and processes differs from one operating system to another, but in most cases, a thread is contained inside a process...
) environment is not necessarely determined by specific methods, belonging to the interface implemented, but still belongs to the API for that Class of objects, and should be described in the documentation.
In this sense, in object-oriented languages, the API defines a set of object behaviors, possibly mediated by a set of class methods.
In such languages, the API is still distributed as a library. For example, the Java language libraries include a set of APIs that are provided in the form of the JDK used by the developers to build new Java programs. The JDK includes the documentation of the API in JavaDoc
Javadoc
Javadoc is a documentation generator from Sun Microsystems for generating API documentation in HTML format from Java source code.The "doc comments" format used by Javadoc is the de facto industry standard for documenting Java classes. Some IDEs, such as Netbeans and Eclipse automatically generate...
notation.
The quality of the documentation associated with an API is often a factor determining its success in terms of ease of use.
API libraries and frameworks
An API is usually related to a software library: the API describes and prescribes the expected behavior while the library is an actual implementation of this set of rules.
A single API can have multiple implementations (or none, being abstract) in the form of different libraries that share the same programming interface.
An API can also be related to a software framework: a framework can be based on several libraries implementing several APIs, but unlike the normal use of an API, the access to the behavior built into the framework is mediated by extending its content with new classes plugged into the framwork itself.
Moreover the overall program flow of control can be out of the control of the caller, and in the hands of the framework via inversion of control
Inversion of Control
In software engineering, Inversion of Control is an abstract principle describing an aspect of some software architecture designs in which the flow of control of a system is inverted in comparison to procedural programming....
or a similar mechanisms.
API and protocols
An API can also be an implementation of a protocol
Communications protocol
A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...
.
In general the difference between an API and a protocol
Communications protocol
A communications protocol is a system of digital message formats and rules for exchanging those messages in or between computing systems and in telecommunications...
is that the protocol defines a standard way to exchange requests and responses based on a common transport and agreeing on a data/message exchange format, while an API (not implementing a protocol) is usually implemented as a library to be used directly: hence there can be no transport involved (no information physically transferred from/to some remote machine), but rather only simple information exchange via function calls (local to the machine where the elaboration takes place) and data is exchanged in formats expressed in a specific language.
When an API implements a protocol it can be based on proxy
Proxy pattern
In computer programming, the proxy pattern is a software design pattern.A proxy, in its most general form, is a class functioning as an interface to something else...
methods for remote invocations that underneath rely on the communication protocol.
The role of the API can be exactly to hide the detail of the transport protocol.
E.g.: RMI
Java remote method invocation
The Java Remote Method Invocation Application Programming Interface , or Java RMI, is a Java application programming interface that performs the object-oriented equivalent of remote procedure calls ....
JRMP, or Java Remote Method Protocol is the Java technology-specific protocol for looking up and referencing remote objects. It is a wire level protocol running at the level under Remote Method Invocation and over TCP/IP.-Details:...
RMI-IIOP denotes the Java Remote Method Invocation interface over the Internet Inter-Orb Protocol , which delivers Common Object Request Broker Architecture distributed computing capabilities to the Java 2 platform...
.
Protocols are usually shared between different technologies (system based on given computer programming languages in a given operating system) and usually allow the different technologies to exchange information, acting as an abstraction/mediation level between the two worlds. While APIs can be specific to a given technology: hence the APIs of a given language cannot be used in other languages, unless the function calls are wrapped with specific adaptation libraries.
Object API and protocols
An object API can prescribe a specific object exchange format, an object exchange protocol can define a way to transfer the same kind of information in a message sent to a remote system.
When a message is exchanged via a protocol between two different platforms using objects on both sides, the object in a programming language can be transformed (marshalled and unmarshalled
Marshalling (computer science)
In computer science, marshalling is the process of transforming the memory representation of an object to a data format suitable for storage or transmission...
) in an object in a remote and different language: so, e.g., a program written in Java invokes a service via SOAP
SOAP
SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
or IIOP written in C# both programs use APIs for remote invocation (each locally to the machine where they are working) to (remotely) exchange information that they both convert from/to an object in local memory.
Instead when a similar object is exchanged via an API local to a single machine the object is effectively exchanged (or a reference
Reference (computer science)
In computer science, a reference is a value that enables a program to indirectly access a particular data item, such as a variable or a record, in the computer's memory or in some other storage device. The reference is said to refer to the data item, and accessing those data is called...
to it) in memory: e.g. via the memory allocated by a single process, or among multiple processes using shared memory
Shared memory
In computing, shared memory is memory that may be simultaneously accessed by multiple programs with an intent to provide communication among them or avoid redundant copies. Depending on context, programs may run on a single processor or on multiple separate processors...
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
The Common Language Runtime is the virtual machine component of Microsoft's .NET framework and is responsible for managing the execution of .NET programs. In a process known as just-in-time compilation, the CLR compiles the intermediate language code known as CIL into the machine instructions...
A Java virtual machine is a virtual machine capable of executing Java bytecode. It is the code execution component of the Java software platform. Sun Microsystems stated that there are over 4.5 billion JVM-enabled devices.-Overview:...
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
enables the language interoperation thanks to the common denominator of the virtual machine
Virtual machine
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...
that abstracts from the specific language using an intermediate bytecode
Bytecode
Bytecode, also known as p-code , is a term which has been used to denote various forms of instruction sets designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter as well as being suitable for further compilation into machine code...
In computing, a binding from a programming language to a library or OS service is an API providing that service in the language.Many software libraries are written in systems programming languages such as C or C++...
Code reuse, also called software reuse, is the use of existing software, or software knowledge, to build new software.-Overview:Ad hoc code reuse has been practiced from the earliest days of programming. Programmers have always reused sections of code, templates, functions, and procedures...
potential for all the existing libraries and related APIs.
Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet or an intranet . This can include web design, web content development, client liaison, client-side/server-side scripting, web server and network security configuration, and e-commerce development...
, an API is typically a defined set of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request messages, along with a definition of the structure of response messages, which is usually in an Extensible Markup Language (XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
JSON , or JavaScript Object Notation, is a lightweight text-based open standard designed for human-readable data interchange. It is derived from the JavaScript scripting language for representing simple data structures and associative arrays, called objects...
) format. While "Web API" is virtually a synonym for web service
Web service
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
) has been moving away from Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP
SOAP
SOAP, originally defined as Simple Object Access Protocol, is a protocol specification for exchanging structured information in the implementation of Web Services in computer networks...
Representational state transfer is a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web. The term representational state transfer was introduced and defined in 2000 by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation...
(REST) style communications. Web APIs allow the combination of multiple services into new applications known as mashups
Mashup (web application hybrid)
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
.
Use of APIs to share content
The practice of publishing APIs has allowed web communities to create an open architecture for sharing content and data between communities and applications. In this way, content that is created in one place can be dynamically posted and updated in multiple locations on the web.
Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...
Photobucket is an image hosting, video hosting, slideshow creation and photo sharing website. It was founded in 2003 by Alex Welch and Darren Crystal and received funding from Trinity Ventures. It was acquired by Fox Interactive Media in 2007....
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
.
Content can be embedded, e.g. embedding a presentation from SlideShare
Slide hosting services
A slide hosting service is a website that allows users to upload, view, comment, and share slideshows created with presentation programs. According to Alexa and Compete rankings, the most popular slide hosting services include websites such as Slideshare, MyPlick , Slideboom, and SlideServe.- Main...
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. , LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French,...
profile.
Content can be dynamically posted. Sharing live comments made on Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
with a Facebook account, for example, is enabled by their APIs.
Video content can be embedded on sites which are served by another host.
User information can be shared from web communities to outside applications, delivering new functionality to the web community that shares its user data via an open API. One of the best examples of this is the Facebook Application platform
Facebook Platform
The Facebook Platform provides a set of APIs and tools which enable third-party developers to integrate with the "open graph" — whether through applications on Facebook.com or external websites and devices...
POSIX , an acronym for "Portable Operating System Interface", is a family of standards specified by the IEEE for maintaining compatibility between operating systems...
standard defines an API that allows a wide range of common computing functions to be written in a way such that they may operate on many different systems (Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
Berkeley Software Distribution is a Unix operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995...
s (BSDs) implement this interface); however, making use of this requires re-compiling
Compiler
A compiler is a computer program that transforms source code written in a programming language into another computer language...
for each platform. A compatible API, on the other hand, allows compiled object code
Object code
Object code, or sometimes object module, is what a computer compiler produces. In a general sense object code is a sequence of statements in a computer language, usually a machine code language....
to function without any changes to the system implementing that API. This is beneficial to both software providers (where they may distribute existing software on new systems without producing and distributing upgrades) and users (where they may install older software on their new systems without purchasing upgrades), although this generally requires that various software libraries implement the necessary APIs as well.
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
has shown a strong commitment to a backward compatible API, particularly within their Windows API
Windows API
The Windows API, informally WinAPI, is Microsoft's core set of application programming interfaces available in the Microsoft Windows operating systems. It was formerly called the Win32 API; however, the name "Windows API" more accurately reflects its roots in 16-bit Windows and its support on...
(Win32) library, such that older applications may run on newer versions of Windows using an executable-specific setting called "Compatibility Mode".
Apple Inc. has shown less concern, breaking compatibility or implementing an API in a slower "emulation mode"; this allows greater freedom in development, at the cost of making older software obsolete.
A Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
operating systems, there are many related but incompatible operating systems running on a common hardware platform (particularly Intel 80386
Intel 80386
The Intel 80386, also known as the i386, or just 386, was a 32-bit microprocessor introduced by Intel in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistors and were used as the central processing unit of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time...
-compatible systems). There have been several attempts to standardize the API such that software vendors may distribute one binary application for all these systems; however, to date, none of these have met with much success. The Linux Standard Base
Linux Standard Base
The Linux Standard Base is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system...
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
platform, while many of the BSD Unixes, such as FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
, implement various levels of API compatibility for both backward compatibility (allowing programs written for older versions to run on newer distributions of the system) and cross-platform compatibility (allowing execution of foreign code without recompiling).
Release policies
The two options for releasing API are:
Protecting information on APIs from the general public. For example, Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
API available only to licensed PlayStation developers. This enabled Sony to control who wrote PlayStation 2 games. This gives companies quality control privileges and can provide them with potential licensing revenue streams.
Making APIs freely available. For example, Microsoft makes the Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
API public, and Apple releases its APIs Carbon and Cocoa
Cocoa (API)
Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface for the Mac OS X operating system and—along with the Cocoa Touch extension for gesture recognition and animation—for applications for the iOS operating system, used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and...
, so that software can be written for their platforms.
Small Computer System Interface is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices. The SCSI standards define commands, protocols, and electrical and optical interfaces. SCSI is most commonly used for hard disks and tape drives, but it...
Cocoa is Apple's native object-oriented application programming interface for the Mac OS X operating system and—along with the Cocoa Touch extension for gesture recognition and animation—for applications for the iOS operating system, used on Apple devices such as the iPhone, the iPod Touch, and...
Microsoft DirectX is a collection of application programming interfaces for handling tasks related to multimedia, especially game programming and video, on Microsoft platforms. Originally, the names of these APIs all began with Direct, such as Direct3D, DirectDraw, DirectMusic, DirectPlay,...
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
Emulator High-level Language Application Program Interface is an enhanced version of HLLAPI. It was introduced in 1986 by the IBM company and it provided functions that can access the user interface data for text-based applications....
In computing, ODBC is a standard C interface for accessing database management systems . The designers of ODBC aimed to make it independent of database systems and operating systems...
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
OpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
OpenAL is a cross-platform audio API. It is designed for efficient rendering of multichannel three dimensional positional audio. Its API style and conventions deliberately resemble those of OpenGL.- History :...
OpenCL is a framework for writing programs that execute across heterogeneous platforms consisting of CPUs, GPUs, and other processors. OpenCL includes a language for writing kernels , plus APIs that are used to define and then control the platforms...
cross-platform API for general-purpose computing for CPUs & GPUs
OpenMP is an API that supports multi-platform shared memory multiprocessing programming in C, C++, and Fortran, on most processor architectures and operating systems, including Linux, Unix, AIX, Solaris, Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows platforms...
API that supports multi-platform shared memory multiprocessing programming in C, C++ and Fortran on many architectures, including Unix and Microsoft Windows platforms.
Simple DirectMedia Layer is a cross-platform, free and open source multimedia library written in C that presents a simple interface to various platforms' graphics, sound, and input devices....
Talend is an open source software vendor that provides data integration, data management and enterprise application integration software and solutions. Headquartered in Suresnes, France and Los Altos, California, Talend has offices in North America, Europe and Asia, and a global network of...
Data management comprises all the disciplines related to managing data as a valuable resource.- Overview :The official definition provided by DAMA International, the professional organization for those in the data management profession, is: "Data Resource Management is the development and execution...
Business process management is a holistic management approach focused on aligning all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation, flexibility, and integration with technology. BPM attempts to...
Bonita Open Solution is an open-source BPM and Workflow suite, created in 2001.It was started in French National Institute for Research in Computer Science, and then had incubated several years inside of the French computer science company Bull...
A high-level programming language is a programming language with strong abstraction from the details of the computer. In comparison to low-level programming languages, it may use natural language elements, be easier to use, or be from the specification of the program, making the process of...
often provide, or are augmented with, facilities to automatically map the API to features (syntactic or semantic) that are more natural in those languages. This is known as language binding
Language binding
In computing, a binding from a programming language to a library or OS service is an API providing that service in the language.Many software libraries are written in systems programming languages such as C or C++...
, and is itself an API. The aim is to encapsulate most of the required functionality of the API, leaving a "thin" layer appropriate to each language.
Below are listed some interface generator tools which bind languages to APIs at compile time
Compile time
In computer science, compile time refers to either the operations performed by a compiler , programming language requirements that must be met by source code for it to be successfully compiled , or properties of the program that can be reasoned about at compile time.The operations performed at...
SWIG is an open source software tool used to connect computer programs or libraries written in C or C++ with scripting languages such as Lua, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Tcl, and other languages like C#, Java, Modula-3, Objective Caml, Octave, and Scheme...
open-source interfaces bindings generator from many languages to many languages (Typically Compiled->Scripted)
Python is a general-purpose, high-level programming language whose design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
In computer software, an application binary interface describes the low-level interface between an application program and the operating system or another application.- Description :...
In computer science, a calling convention is a scheme for how subroutines receive parameters from their caller and how they return a result; calling conventions can differ in:...
This article lists some software virtual machines that are typically used for allowing application bytecode to be portably run on many different computer architectures and operating systems. The application is usually run on the computer using an interpreter or just-in-time compilation...
The Common Object Request Broker Architecture is a standard defined by the Object Management Group that enables software components written in multiple computer languages and running on multiple computers to work together .- Overview:CORBA enables separate pieces of software written in different...
a cross platform-language standard for intercommunication
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
In software engineering, a double-chance function is a software design pattern with a strong application in cross-platform and scalable development. It is easiest to explain it with an example....
A foreign function interface is a mechanism by which a program written in one programming language can call routines or make use of services written in another. The term comes from the specification for Common Lisp, which explicitly refers to the language features for inter-language calls as...
In computing, a binding from a programming language to a library or OS service is an API providing that service in the language.Many software libraries are written in systems programming languages such as C or C++...
In Web development, a mashup is a Web page or application that uses and combines data, presentation or functionality from two or more sources to create new services...
In compiler construction, name mangling is a technique used to solve various problems caused by the need to resolve unique names for programming entities in many modern programming languages....
Open Service Interface Definitions are programmatic interface specifications describing services. These interfaces are specified by the Open Knowledge Initiative to implement a Service-Oriented Architecture to achieve interoperability among applications across a varied base of underlying and...
A platform-enabled website is a website in which additional functionality can be seamlessly integrated by means of an external application programming interface . The platform should provide integration points...
A software development kit is typically a set of software development tools that allows for the creation of applications for a certain software package, software framework, hardware platform, computer system, video game console, operating system, or similar platform.It may be something as simple...
SWIG is an open source software tool used to connect computer programs or libraries written in C or C++ with scripting languages such as Lua, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, Tcl, and other languages like C#, Java, Modula-3, Objective Caml, Octave, and Scheme...
– opensource interfaces bindings generator from many languages to many languages
A Web service is a method of communication between two electronic devices over the web.The W3C defines a "Web service" as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". It has an interface described in a machine-processable format...
XPCOM is a cross-platform component model from Mozilla. It is similar to Microsoft COM and CORBA. It has multiple language bindings and IDL descriptions so programmers can plug their custom functionality into the framework and connect it with other components.-The model:XPCOM is one of the main...
(Cross-Platform Component Object Model) is a cross-platform component model from Mozilla
Mozilla
Mozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
