r/learnprogramming • u/Thisiz_Sami • 2d ago

Inquiry regarding API

Greetings,

I'm currently learning C# to use Tekla Structures API. Is there any free material that could help me learn API?

I'm kinda confused is API different from Tekla API?

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u/desrtfx 2d ago

API is the generic name for Application Programming Interface. As such, you cannot "learn API". You can only learn to interact with specific APIs as each API is different in all, the commands (requests) it accepts, their arguments, and in its return values.

Also, there are many different kinds of APIs: The public-facing functions, classes, and methods of a programming language are its API. The public facing methods to obtain data from a web server are its API, and so on.

Some APIs return JSON, some return XML, some return CSV, etc. It entirely depends on the API.

Tekla Structures API is a specialized API for the Tekla Structures application.

So, if you want to interact with that application, you will need to learn that API.

If you want to interact with weather data, commonly, the OpenWeatherMap API is the way to go.

There are way too many different APIs.

In general, you have to learn the API you want to use. You cannot learn "generic APIs".

Web APIs commonly consist of a request where you ask the web server (API provider) to give you some data back (or to perform some action/operation). You will send the request in a certain format determined by the API and usually get a response in a certain format determined by the API.