confusions regarding application framework and api

i was just reading something about the api and application framework on wikipedia and on different pages after searching..got some queries regarding both: 1) there are three things: library, framework and api….in this, framework consists of many libraries and every library consists of an api through which that library can be accessed…please correct me if i am wrong in the last statement. 2) i understood the purpose of google maps api…can someone please let me know the purpose of using general api's such as java or direct x api….instead of using api, the user can install the framework for java and solve the purpose….then why using these general purpose api? 3) can anyone also let me know some examples of websites or applications that are using api? 4) As per my understanding, api is simply an interface through which an application/website can access the code and database of another application/website….now, the confusion in this is whether i am correct in saying code and database or only code can be accessed using api because code will anyways have access to database so api cannot access database directly? Thanks in advance….

Is there no one to answer this query? Note: I am asking this query after researching this on Net.

Hi vijay.gupta, As you know, our volunteer helpers tend to reply when they have a solution or familiarity with the requested information. Sometimes, a question is specific to a particular application in a way which would make it silly to try to answer without full knowledge or direct experience in the topic. Hopefully a competent helper will notice your topical question. If not, I do hope that you will post any solution or answer that you discover yourself. Best Regards

Hello vijay.gupta,

I think I can give you some help, using java as an example.

When I program a standalone java desktop application I'm using the java api, which you can see the specification HERE.

Along with this, I can introduce a framework such as STRUTS or the Spring frameworks. What this means is I don't need to rely totally on the java libraries, I can use pieces of the Spring framework to make part of the development easier (in some points of view).

Still using java, while developing a desktop application that accesses a database you can chose to use the java api or introduce a different framework like hibernate. This particular framework was designed to work with databases, it greatly reduces the amount of code needed to access a particular database. So, a framework can reduce complexity and redundancy of code. But, you don't need to use them, you can write the whole application in java.

Yahoo and Google are 2 vendors that have developed web programming interfaces. One I have used in the past is the YUI api by Yahoo. Sure you can develop a nice website with javascript, but if Yahoo has some javascript done that will do what you need and all it takes is to add a library to your site with a few inserts of code into your html, you can save loads of time and hour of debugging.

I may not be totally accurate in my descriptions of API, Library and framework but this is how I understand it and it works for me. Maybe someone else can explain it better.

Thanks,
Astabi