What is REST API?
The word REST stands for REpresentational State Transfer. It is an architectural style used when designing networked applications. Web service APIs that conform to the REST architectural constraints are known as RESTful, or REST API.
How Visual Paradigm supports REST API?
Visual Paradigm supports modeling the underlying communication model of REST API, as well as the generation of REST API and API documentation.
The following Activity Diagram shows you the steps that a provider will take in order to produce the REST API and related API documentation. First of all, the service provider will design the communication model with a class diagram that visualize the REST service, the request and response body. He can then generate the REST API and API documentation from the class diagram. After that, the provider can continue with programming the service logic. When finished, he can deploy the service and publish the API on their website.
The following Activity Diagram shows you the steps that a consumer will take in order to use the service. Consumer of service can visit the API documentation page, download an XML file and then import the XML file into Visual Paradigm. By doing so, they can then generate the source code and the API required in accessing the service. The final step would be to program the application that uses the service with the generated source code.
