REST 101

The TIBCO Scribe® API adheres to the principles of RESTful Web services. REST is an architectural style, not a formal protocol. Unlike SOAP-based web services, RESTful web services do not have an official standard. All REST APIs use standard web technologies, such as HTTP, JSON, and XML to expose application logic and data, and enable developers to use any language and environment that is capable of connecting to the Web. While each REST implementation accomplishes this, how each one does so differs.

Characteristics of the TIBCO Scribe® REST API are:

Uses SSL (HTTPS) to ensure all data is secure
Uses HTTP Basic Authentication to validate API users
Validates that API users have the same rights and restrictions as they do in the TIBCO Scribe® user interface for all Organization-based methods
Uses TIBCO Scribe® interface entities, such as Agents, Solutions, and Maps, as REST resources that exchange data with the API as JSON objects
Supports CRUD operations using standard HTTP verbs:
- Create = POST
- Read = GET
- Update (Replace) = PUT
- Delete = DELETE
Returns a standard HTTP response code for all methods. See HTTP Response Codes for a list of the specific response codes
Uses HTTP POST to implement command operations where no CRUD operation is performed, such as the POST test Connection method
Populates a unique resource ID field when a record is created and uses that field to perform all subsequent operations on that resource

The specific details on how to work with REST APIs differ based on the development language you use. If you are new to working with REST web services, consult the appropriate documentation on the HTTP Client library.

To work with REST in some common languages, see the following links:

.NET - Calling a Web API From a .NET Client (C#)

Java - Accessing REST Resources with the JAX-RS Client

See