A Complete Guide to WordPress Rest API: What You Need to Know

API (Application Programming Interface) is a medium or platform for apps to exchange data with each other. In amateur words, it's a way for apps to talk to each other. However, they use some specific types of ways to exchange information, such as rest APIs. Rest is an architectural style that stands for Representational State Transfer. They can exchange data in two formats, either XML or JSON.  

To bring outstanding functionality & opportunities in WordPress development, in  December 2016, they introduced the rest of the APIs to WordPress, naming WordPress REST APIs. This allows WP developers to interact with the sites remotely by sending JSON objects. That simply means you can build websites, desktop apps and mobile apps on WordPress from the back end without even using the front end. 

To make things clear and to represent it as a complete guide, let’s start from scratch. 

Introducing REST APIs in terms of WordPress- 

REST (Representational State Transfer) APIs or RESTful APIs are interfaces used to transfer data from WordPress into both codebase and usage. You can access the WordPress website from the outside without installing it. Rest APIs fulfil four HTTP requests known as GET, PUT, POST and DELETE. 

(Note: we will explain these WP rest commands below.) 

To understand REST APIs, you must get both of the parts REST and API (Application Programming Interface). Where APIs are a set of codes helping systems interact with each other. The most familiar example is when you use Google Maps on your WordPress website. So basically, you are using Google Maps APIs for your WordPress so your website can interact with Google Maps. 

Now you say, WordPress already has a significant number of plugins, Multiple APIs, settings and shortcodes that can work for it, so what’s the difference?

Well, REST APIs are different and allow the system to interact outside WordPress and much more, let’s see how?

Understanding the working of WordPress REST API- 

Working with the modern standards of APIs, REST works without direct access to the database or user interface and manipulates textual data from one place to another. HTTP delivers the Rest APIs (Hypertext transfer protocol) endpoints and JONS (JavaScript Object Notation), representing pages, posts, and other data. 

However, if you are aware of even basic JONS, we suggest you learn it first or hire a professional WordPress developer for that. 

There are four WP Access commands you need to interact with the site.  

• GET- The most commonly used command to retrieve data you use after accessing the site. In this command, you can fetch the complete list of published pages to your site. After retrieving data, use it as your next step. 

You might edit, delete or update these posts or can simply output them to web apps. Here you can post, edit or delete them or simply put them into the site.   

• POST- To add a new data or resource to your site, use POST. Basically, you can create a post by using the command POST. This starts while creating an empty draft post which is edited while using the next command known as PUT. 
• PUT- This command lets you edit the post and others from existing resources. For this, you can use the number of draft posts, which you want to check or update. This will start after fetching all the draft posts.

You can use one of them from the list of all current draft posts while using the ID. That’s how you can access and edit or change its status by using the status argument. You can also add content to the post and edit it. After the successful posting, it will return you the code 200-OK.  

• DELETE- As per the name, the delete command is used to delete the resource. However, by default, if you use it for deleting the post, it will put it into the trash instant of deleting it.  

However, if you want to delete it even from the trash, you could use the command FORCE. 

How does it affect developers' lives?

As they wrote These APIs in JONS, it allows developers to exchange data from WordPress to other software written in any programming language. This way it does not limit developers to PHP, as they can handle data by rest APIs.

Also, it helps developers to work remotely via sending and receiving JONS objects.  

Closure! 

We try to make it a simple and understandable guide based on WordPress Rest API. In this blog, we started with an introduction of Rest, APIs, and WP APIs and then led you towards a complete explanation. Where we explain REST APIs, WordPress REST APIs and workability & commands of WP Rest APIs with effects on developers' lives. 

However, we have not touched the technical part and suggest you hire a Professional WordPress API Integration services for that.