Professional Web APIs with PHP. eBay, Google, PayPal, Amazon, FedEx, Plus Web Feeds

Overview

In this chapter, the focus flips from using an API presented by another group to creating one of your own. Creating an API isn't a terribly complicated process; frameworks like NuSOAP handle all the difficult XML processing and generation for you. There are, however, numerous considerations that should be examined before starting a new API project. This chapter covers the following:

• Planning your API

• Enabling authentication and encryption

• Deciding between REST and SOAP

• Working with your community of developers

• Performance considerations

• Error handling

Additionally, the end of this chapter provides two complete examples, one using REST and the other using SOAP.