Which statement best describes REST API usage?

Which statement best describes REST API usage?

• A. The default API protocol using HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to manipulate resources identified by URLs.
• B. A query language API that uses a single endpoint where clients specify exactly the data they need.
• C. An action-oriented API paradigm where clients call functions on a remote server as if they were local.
• D. The binary serialization format used by a specific RPC framework.

Answer: (A)

REST API usage centers on addressing resources with URLs and manipulating them using the standard HTTP methods. In REST, each resource has its own address, and you perform actions like retrieve, create, update, or delete by using HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT (or PATCH), and DELETE. The interaction is stateless, with each request containing all the information needed for the server to process it, and responses return a representation of the resource (commonly JSON or XML). This combination of resource-based URLs and HTTP verb semantics is what the statement is capturing. The other descriptions point to different paradigms: a single-endpoint query language approach (like GraphQL) versus a remote procedure call style (RPC) where you invoke functions on a server, or a specific binary serialization format tied to an RPC framework. Those ideas describe alternatives to REST, not REST itself.

REST API usage centers on addressing resources with URLs and manipulating them using the standard HTTP methods. In REST, each resource has its own address, and you perform actions like retrieve, create, update, or delete by using HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT (or PATCH), and DELETE. The interaction is stateless, with each request containing all the information needed for the server to process it, and responses return a representation of the resource (commonly JSON or XML). This combination of resource-based URLs and HTTP verb semantics is what the statement is capturing.

The other descriptions point to different paradigms: a single-endpoint query language approach (like GraphQL) versus a remote procedure call style (RPC) where you invoke functions on a server, or a specific binary serialization format tied to an RPC framework. Those ideas describe alternatives to REST, not REST itself.