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New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides?

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  New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? ApathyBear <nirchernia@gmail.com> - 2014-02-20 23:59 -0800
    Re: New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-02-21 09:19 +0000
    Re:New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? Dave Angel <davea@davea.name> - 2014-02-21 06:49 -0500
    Re: New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? ApathyBear <nirchernia@gmail.com> - 2014-02-21 12:12 -0800
      Re: New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? Joel Goldstick <joel.goldstick@gmail.com> - 2014-02-21 15:21 -0500
      Re: New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? Roy Smith <roy@panix.com> - 2014-02-21 20:52 -0500
      Re: New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> - 2014-02-22 02:45 +0000
        Re: New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides? Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au> - 2014-02-22 14:30 +1100

#66810 — New to working with APIs, any good tutorials/books/guides?

I don't understand how APIs work to save my life. I am a complete beginner. In fact, I am a bit confused on what API even means and what the meaning entails.

I am fairly competent with python, though I do lack some real world experience. Regardless, any tutorials/books/guides that deal with API for a complete beginner would be awesome.

Thanks.


PS: Something that can explain SDKs would be helpful as well. 

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#66820

On Thu, 20 Feb 2014 23:59:16 -0800, ApathyBear wrote:

> I don't understand how APIs work to save my life. I am a complete
> beginner. In fact, I am a bit confused on what API even means and what
> the meaning entails.

API stands for "Application Programming Interface", and it essentially 
means the set of interfaces, calling conventions, functions, methods etc. 
of a language, library or even a single function.

For example, in Python, the API of the len() function is really simple:

- len() takes a single mandatory argument;

- that argument must be a sequence, mapping, or some other object 
  with a __len__ method;

- otherwise len() will raise TypeError;

- len() will always return an int;

- which is supposed to be the length of the sequence or mapping.


That's pretty much the API for the function len(). Simple, isn't it? Now, 
obviously the API for an entire library is more complicated. It includes 
rules for how many and what kind of arguments each function, class or 
method expects; what values they are allowed to be; what sort of values 
will be returned; what exceptions will be raised, and so forth.

Basically, when you read the manual for a language or library, that's 
documenting the API. That's all there is to it.


-- 
Steven

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#66827

 ApathyBear <nirchernia@gmail.com> Wrote in message:
> I don't understand how APIs work to save my life. I am a complete beginner. In fact, I am a bit confused on what API even means and what the meaning entails.
> 
> I am fairly competent with python, though I do lack some real world experience. Regardless, any tutorials/books/guides that deal with API for a complete beginner would be awesome.
> 

At its most fundamental,  the API is the documentation that makes
 it practical to reuse code you didn't write yourself,  or that
 you wrote longer than 30 days ago.

"Application Programmer Interface" describes the functions,  the
 classes,  the globals. The semantics,  the algorithms,  the
 assumptions,  the gotchas.  The license,  the restrictions.

If you inherit a body of code and it doesn't define an API,
 chances are it's throwaway code,  good only for examples.
 

> 
> 
> PS: Something that can explain SDKs would be helpful as well. 
> 

SDK is "Software Development Kit"  Generally it's a bunch of
 related APIs plus one or more of tools like editor,  compiler, 
 interpreter,  debugger,  profiler, test generator,  IDE, source
 control system,  bug tracker,  etc. 

-- 
DaveA

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#66845

Thanks, I think I have an understanding of what they are, but now am still a little confused on how one goes about using it: how am I supposed to know how to use an API in python? or in any other language for that matter? If an API is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for trying to use it in python?

Examples??

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#66846

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On Feb 21, 2014 3:15 PM, "ApathyBear" <nirchernia@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Thanks, I think I have an understanding of what they are, but now am
still a little confused on how one goes about using it: how am I supposed
to know how to use an API in python? or in any other language for that
matter? If an API is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for trying to
use it in python?
>
> Examples??

Google to find some sport that interest you. Read the docs and tutorial

> --
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list

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#66860

In article <3fa5e368-a47c-4a7e-80dc-c5333fb5603e@googlegroups.com>,
 ApathyBear <nirchernia@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks, I think I have an understanding of what they are, but now am still a 
> little confused on how one goes about using it: how am I supposed to know how 
> to use an API in python? or in any other language for that matter? If an API 
> is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for trying to use it in python?

API is a very generic term for Application Programming Interface.  It's 
just the protocol that you need to follow to communicate with some kind 
of system of software package.

The documentation for an API should describe what operations are 
available, how you send data to it, and how it sends things back to you.  
Beyond that, there's not a whole lot that can be said because there are 
so many different kinds of APIs with vastly different interfaces.

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#66863

On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:12:00 -0800, ApathyBear wrote:

> Thanks, I think I have an understanding of what they are, but now am
> still a little confused on how one goes about using it: how am I
> supposed to know how to use an API in python? 

*scratches head*

Er, first you learn how to program in Python, then you read the API 
documentation and do what it says. If the documentation says that the 
function requires a single string argument, then you give the function a 
single string argument.

I suspect that either your question is much more subtle and complicated 
than your actual words allow, or you're making things much, much, much 
more complicated than they actually are. In an earlier post, you said you 
had some experience programming in Python. If your code works, then you 
know how to use the APIs of the functions and libraries that you used.

Here I am using the API for the len() function:

alist = [1, 2, 3]
number_of_items = len(alist)


That's all. Easy, wasn't it? I'm using the API for the len() function.

If you were asking for help with some *specific* API ("I don't understand 
the multiprocessing module!"), that I could get. Some APIs are 
complicated, or badly designed, or badly written, or require advanced 
understanding. But APIs *in general* can be as simple as len().


> or in any other language
> for that matter? If an API is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for
> trying to use it in python?

If an API is defined for a C library or function, then, no, you can't use 
it in Python, or Lisp, or Ruby, just as you can't use a Lisp function in 
C or Forth or Pascal. Not unless one or the other language makes special 
provision to allow such cross-language communication.


It might be better for you to give us concrete examples of what you don't 
understand, rather than to continue talking in vague generalities.


-- 
Steven

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#66872

On 22Feb2014 02:45, Steven D'Aprano <steve+comp.lang.python@pearwood.info> wrote:
> On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:12:00 -0800, ApathyBear wrote:
> > [...] or in any other language
> > for that matter? If an API is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for
> > trying to use it in python?
> 
> If an API is defined for a C library or function, then, no, you can't use 
> it in Python, or Lisp, or Ruby, just as you can't use a Lisp function in 
> C or Forth or Pascal. Not unless one or the other language makes special 
> provision to allow such cross-language communication.

What Steven says is true, at the simplest level.

However, MANY popular APIs that come with (for example) C libraries
and which are documented in terms of a C programming interface have
Python modules whose entire purpose in life is to present a Python
API which in turn accesses the C API for you.

For one example, consider the "bsddb" Python 2 module, which is
part of the standard library: if you have Python 2, you have the
bsddb module:

  http://docs.python.org/2/library/bsddb.html#module-bsddb

The BSD dbm libraries are C libraries with a C API. However, the
bsddb module is a Python module which contains python calls which
operate on BSD dbm files. If you're using Python, you can use this
module, which of course has a _Python_ API, to use the BSD dbm
library.

So: if you have some library which has a C API, it is possible that
there is a Python module which interfaces to it, and that module
will have a Python API. You may need to fetch such a module from a
third place, such as PyPI.

Cheers,
-- 
Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au>

Who are all you people and why are you in my computer?  - Kibo

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