Representational State Transfer (REST)

Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style of architecture based on a set of principles that describe how networked resources are defined and addressed. These principles were first described in 2000 by Roy Fielding as part of his doctoral dissertation (new window). REST is an alternative to the W3C's set of standards that include SOAP (new window) and other WS-* specifications (some are shown in the navigation menu below).

It is important to note that REST is a style of software architecture as opposed to a set of standards. As a result, such applications or architectures are sometimes referred to as RESTful or REST-style applications or architectures. REST has proved to be a popular choice for implementing Web Services. For example, the books suggested at the bottom of many of these article pages are dynamically generated, in part, using a REST architecture. It is one of the options for Amazon Web Services (new window).

An application or architecture considered RESTful or REST-style is characterized by:

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State and functionality are divided into distributed resources

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Every resource is uniquely addressable using a uniform and minimal set of commands (typically using HTTP commands of GET, POST, PUT, or DELETE over the Internet)

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The protocol is client/server, stateless, layered, and supports caching

This is essentially the architecture of the Internet and helps to explain the popularity and ease-of-use for REST.

More information:  Roy Fielding's doctoral dissertation (new window)

 

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Related books at Amazon.com


RESTful Web Services
by Leonard Richardson, Sam Ruby, David Heinemeier Hansson
Average Customer Review: 4.5 stars based on 28 reviews.
Customer Review: RESTful web services is one of the (very) few books I read from start to finish without browsing the ToC for "more interesting" chapters than the one I was currently reading. From a writers perspective, this book is executed flawlessly: great organization of content, good segues that keep the flow, fun to read, etc. The title, howev...

Developing web services choreography standards-the case of REST vs. SOAP [An article from: Decision Support Systems]
by M. zur Muehlen, J.V. Nickerson, K.D. Swenson
Publisher: Elsevier
Publication Date: July 2005

More related books: Search Amazon.com for Representational State Transfer

 

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