CST 363 Week 6

    In Week 6, I learned about application programming interfaces (APIs) and their critical role in connecting applications to services like databases. The week covered various types of database APIs, their capabilities, and the architectural structure that underpins their functionality. Additionally, I explored how APIs facilitate efficient data management and interaction while addressing challenges related to different programming languages.

    An application programming interface (API) defines the interaction between applications and services like databases, with variations depending on the programming language used. Common APIs for relational databases include ODBC, JDBC, and DB-API, each facilitating connection management, query preparation, execution, and interaction with stored procedures. These APIs streamline data access and manipulation for developers.

    Database APIs typically consist of two layers: a driver for direct database connections and a driver manager that connects applications to these drivers. While relational databases support standard SQL, they may have unique implementations requiring different drivers. Many APIs also connect to non-relational data sources, though these may lack full SQL capabilities. Some APIs support secondary APIs to access unsupported data sources, which can introduce inefficiencies due to additional processing layers.

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