An application-programming interface (API) is a set of programming instructions and standards for accessing a Web-based software application or Web tool.

Developers use APIs to integrate with Salesforce Org Which API and when to use Purpose : Accessing data from Force.com or Database.com Types of APIs : 1)SOAP API ================== Most commonly used API SOAP as a wrapper for API operations This is the API that s been around the longest To create SOAP messages *concatenate strings to build a SOAP envelope, it s pretty laborious: So using Tools to import the WSDL: Visual Studio Eclipse Also use Toolkits : Java toolkit --- WSC WSC: 1) Import .jar file 2) Gives a nice programming interface to create records, run queries, etc 3) SOAP API is oriented around accessing data and manipulating records ================================== 2)Metadata API (another SOAP-based API) =============== Gives an API to manipulate layouts, Visualforce pages, Apex triggers and classes Querying information about your organization updating or creating objects full create, read, update and delete with the metadata API Need a library on the client side or can use the tooling to import the WSDL Force.com IDE use the Metadata API to make changes in an org. need a library on the client side or can use the tooling to import the WSDL. Metadata API allows to upload Apex classes ======================== 3)Apex API ============

4)Apex SOAP Enables to expose Apex methods via SOAP.

5)REST ================ Representational State Transfer Point-to-point call, in some ways SOAP can be overkill. 6)REST API 7)Bulk API 8)Apex REST 9)Streaming API 10)Chatter API