What exactly is an API ?

numerical25

Ok, I lied... I some what know what an API is. Reason Im asking is Im using a cart called Magento that has an API.

To my understand I know an API is an interface that only allows the programmer to only modify things that are appropriate enough to modify. What I dont understand is ...

Magento's API looks nothing like PHP. It has code like this

sales_order_shipment.list

which is a method that Retrieve list of shipments by filters. Notice that it has a dot notation which php doesnt have.. Why do they make the API code different from php ??? Is there any importance to that ??

next thing I dont understand is that you have to use a soap adapter to get to methods like above

$client = new SoapClient('http://youmagentohost/api/?wsdl');

why do you have to connect to soap to retrieve data that is coming from your server ?????

Maybe I do understand API and magento is just confusing. if anyone has any ideas, just reply

dougal85

have you tried reading this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/API

jazz_snob

numerical25, there are 2 ways to look at this:

Who cares what the API tells you to do, just do it,and as long as it works be happy. Thats my preference and really if someone hands you an API thats how it should be used.
If you have to get under the hood to do something outside what the API handles, or want to figure out how it works, then you'll have to dig deeper; like into the source code. Maybe they are doing some eval() on the function name with a dot in it, or some pattern replacement stuff, I don't know.

As far as using soap, maybe they are trying to use a service oriented architecture. Seems kinda silly when its your own site. But now imagine you have affiliates on other domains that want to access your services. If you have a way to expose some core services , like listing products in a particular category, now you have a benefit by using soap.