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An application programming interface (API) is a particular set of rules and specifications that software programs can follow to communicate with each other. It serves as an interface between different software programs and facilitates their interaction, similar to the way the user interface facilitates interaction between humans and computers. An API can be created for applications, libraries, operating systems, etc. as a way of defining their "vocabularies" and resource request conventions (e.g. function-calling conventions). It may include specifications for routines, data structures, object classes, and protocols used to communicate between the consumer program and the implementer program of the API.

An API can be generalized for many functions, appearing bundled in the libraries of a programming language, e.g. the Standard Template Library in C++ or the Java API. It can also be function-specific, meant to address a specific problem, e.g. the Google Maps API or the Java API for XML Web Services. Some APIs are language-dependent, meaning they can only use the syntax and elements of a particular language, which makes the API more convenient to use. Of course, an API may also be language-independent, written so that it can be called from several programming languages. This is a desirable feature for a service-oriented API that is not bound to a specific process or system and may be provided as remote procedure calls or web services. (Full article...)

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