Application Program Interface is the option in a software program to permit other software programs to interact with it. This article will provide you with the basic idea about Application Program Interface, especially about Java API. It also gives you an introduction about one of the Java APIs.
A human needs ‘User Interface’ to interact with Operating System or any other Application Software; like wise an application program need an API to interact with the same. Developers implement program calls in their application to make request for accessing particular software. API will read and analyze this request and give permission to access that software. In simple, we can compare API with the doors of a house.
Types of Java APIs
Java programming language has three types of Application Program Interfaces namely Official, Optional Official and Unofficial Application Program Interfaces.
JRE or JDK holds the ‘Official’ APIs. We would get these APIs, mean while the downloading of JDK. Java platform have three editions, which are Standard, Enterprise and Micro edition. All these three edition contains the ‘Official’ APIs.
Some Official standard edition APIs are
AWT(Abstract Window Toolkit)
JCF(Java Collections Framework)Swing
JDBC(Java Database Connectivity)
JAAS(Java Authentication and Authorization Service)
JSSE(Java Secure Socket Extension)
JNI(Java Native Interface) etc.
Some Official Enterprise edition APIs are
JMS(Java Message Service)
JSF(Java Server Faces) etc.
Official Micro edition API
CLDC(Connected Limited Device Configuration)
Optional Official APIs are not included with the JDK. Separate downloading is required for these APIs. Java Specification Request-(JSR) will define the APIs specification. So later these ‘Optional’ APIs may include to the list of ‘Official’ APIs. Swing is an example of this kind.
Some Optional Official Standard edition APIs are
JAI(Java Advanced Imaging)
JCA(Java Communications API)
JDO(Java Data Objects)
JNDI(Java Naming and Directory Interface),
Java Mail etc
Optional Official Enterprise edition API
JAX-RPC(java API for XML- Based RPC)
Third parties will release the Unofficial APIs, if some one need to communicate their program with some mobile service providers. But different service providers have different protocols. So to overcome this they need these type of ‘Unofficial’ APIs.
Some Unofficial APIs are
SAMS(Server APIs for Mobile Services)
Eclipse
Cobra HTML parser and render-er library etc.
JAXR -(Java API for XML Registries) a brief description
Over the internet, JAXR renders a better way for accessing standard business-registries. These business-registries contains the information about other businesses and their providing services. The registry may contains other registries also. Registries are in the form of XML registry which allows B2B-(Business to Business) interactions. These business registries implementations are done by registry provider through some standards. JAXR client and JAXR provider(server side) are the two entities used in JAXR API. The JAXR provider can be accessed by the JAXR client, using some interfaces in JAXR API. Then the communication to a registry is done by he JAXR provider.
Conclusion
APIs play a vital role in software applications. In our huge network of technologies which are supported by different languages, APIs helps them to interact with each other. With the help of Java APIs many java applications can be integrated with other applications.