Post on 12-Sep-2021
REST API Developer Preview
Dave Carroll Developer Evangelist dcarroll@salesforce.com @dcarroll
Alex Toussaint Sr. Product Manager atoussaint@salesforce.com @alextoussaint
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Shift in Cloud Computing
Force.com API Family
REST API – What is REST?
– Characteristics
– Anatomy of REST call
– Start Exploring
Demos – Rest Explorer
– Android Client
– HTML5/Ipad
Next Steps
Agenda
Fundamental Shift in Cloud Computing
Collaboration . Real-time . Mobile Low Cost . Fast . Easy-to-use
SOAP API – Most popular API in use today
– SOAP based services
– Synchronous
Bulk API – Ideal for very large data sets
– REST based services
– Asynchronous
REST API (Pilot for Winter ‘11 Release) – Brand new API suitable for Web 2.0 projects, mobile devices, HTML5
– REST based services
– Synchronous
– Pilot launch with over 1000 developers
The Force.com API
What is REST?
The term Representational State Transfer was introduced and defined in 2000 by Roy Fielding in his doctoral dissertation:
– http://www.ics.uci.edu/~taylor/documents/2002-REST-TOIT.pdf
Representational State Transfer (REST) is a style of software architecture for distributed hypermedia systems such as the World Wide Web
Simplify how developers can build applications and services to work over the web
Can you translate that to English for me?
– What is a resource?
Leverage HTTP – Each resource in the Force.com REST API is a named URI that is used with an
HTTP method such as: HEAD, GET, POST, PATCH, or DELETE.
Stateless – Each request from client to server must contain all the information necessary to
understand the request, and not use any stored context on the server
Caching Behavior – Responses are labeled as cacheable or non-cacheable
Uniform interface – All resources are accessed with a generic interface over HTTP
Named resources – All resources are named using a base URI that follows Salesforce.com URI
Characteristics
Authentication – the Force.com REST API supports OAuth 2.0
– and our standard ways to get SID
Support XML and JSON – You can use the HTTP ACCEPT header to select either JSON or XML to be
returned, or append .json or .xml to the URI, for example
– /Account/001D000000INjVe.json
JSON Format – The JavaScript Object Notation ( JSON) format is supported with UTF-8, with
date-time information in ISO8601 format. XML serialization is similar to the SOAP-based Web services API
XML Format – XML requests are supported in UTF-8 and UTF-16
– and XML responses are provided in UTF-8
Characteristics
HTTP Method + Resource + Authorization – curl http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/Account/ -H
"Authorization: OAuth token" -H "X-PrettyPrint:1”
– curl http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/attachment/001D000000INjVe/body -H "Authorization: OAuth token" -H "X-PrettyPrint:1”
– curl http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/query/?q=SELECT+name+from+Account-H "Authorization: OAuth token" -H "X-PrettyPrint:1”
An HTTP ACCEPT header used to indicate the resource format (XML or JSON), or a .json or .xml extension
Any JSON or XML files for requests, such as updating a record with new information
Anatomy of REST API call
Authenticating with OAuth2
Looking to correct/improve issues with 1.0
Based on OAuth WRAP Actively being defined in IETF WG
– Salesforce, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, and lots of others
Initial implementations from MSFT, Google, Twitter, Facebook, 37 signals, Github….and Salesforce
Very simple programming model
Defined flows for a wide set of clients
Several example libraries available
Configuring a Client Setup/Administration/Create/Remote Access
Applications running on a Browser or Mobile device – Simpler syntax, small foot print
– Leverage HTTP standards
– Front end, client based integrations
Web 2.0 type projects – Commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interactive
information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration
– User interacting with system, getting data chunks at a time
Enterprise projects where WSDL contract not required – The detailed data typing provided WSDL is not required
– JSON formatted results
– HTTP are your method calls
When to use REST?
Get a list of resources: – http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/
Get a List of Available Objects – http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/
Get Basic Object Information – http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/Account/
Get a List of Fields – http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/Account/describe/
Executing a SOQL Query – http://na1.salesforce.com/services/data/v20.0/query?q=SELECT+name+from
+Account
Basic Calls - Start Exploring
Available at the App Store today
/services/data/v20.0/query?q=SELECT+Name+from+Account
/services/data/v20.0/sobjects/Account/describe/
Demo - REST Explorer
Demo - Android
Demo - iPad/HTML5 App
Typical questions we get at this point: – What happens with the SOAP API? – What happens with the Bulk API?
– Authenticate using SID or OAuth2 – REST Upsert?
– Cross domain scripting? – Considering eTags?
– More Documentation? More samples?
– InterOp testing?
– Patch – Why?
– Serialization/Deserialization of JSON in APEX? – Where do we go from here? – Can we deploy our app to production?
REST API - Pilot
Questions
1. Register for Developer Account – http://developer.force.com/
2. Get REST API enabled in your Org – https://www.developerforce.com/events/rest_developer_preview/registration.php
3. Get a copy of our REST API documentation – http://boards.developerforce.com/t5/REST-Development/bd-p/REST
4. Get involved in the REST Discussion Groups – http://boards.developerforce.com/t5/REST-Development/bd-p/REST
5. Come meet us at CloudStock 2010 – http://www.cloudstockevent.com/?d=70130000000FWtI
6. Come meet us at Dream Force 2010 – http://www.salesforce.com/dreamforce/DF10/home/
7. Survey – http://bit.ly/RESTAPI6am
Next Steps
Thank you!