167. Understanding API (Application Programming Interface)

In order to understand JAVA completely, you need to understand its API first.  API stands for Application Programming Interface.

What is an API ?

An API is a set of predefined commands, functions and protocols which  programmers use while developing the code.

What are predefined functions ?

Instead of writing the code from scratch we can use the predefined methods.

Lets understand the difference between writing the code from scratch and using predefined methods by implementing a java program to print the greater of two numbers.

Lets implement this on Eclipse IDE -

1. Launch Eclipse IDE, create a new Java Project 'Project 014' as shown below -

2. Create a package 'package_014' under the Java Project 'Project 014' as shown below -

3. Create a Class 'Class014' with main( ) method under the package 'package_014' as shown below -

4. Now lets write the code from scratch to print the greater of two numbers as shown below -

5. Instead of writing the above code from scratch, we can use a predefined function max( )  in Java API to find the greater of two number. In order to use the max( ) method we have to call it from its Class called Math. Math is a static class, so there is no need of creating objects for calling the methods inside it. So we can call max( ) method in Math Class just by specifying Math.max( ) in the code as shown below -

Hence its very clear that by using Java API, we can use its predefined functions to avoid writing the code from the scratch.

Please comment below to feedback or ask questions.

Understanding Java API will be explained in the next post.