This four-part series introduces you to REST, a set of principles that define how a server and client can communicate with each other (and external resources) in a simple, straightforward, and robust manner. Though you’ll often see the words “REST” and “architecture” together, REST is not a specific architecture. In this part you’ll learn about REST’s principles why most REST applications use HTTP.

This installment in the four-part series focuses on the server-side. You’ll learn how to shift your thinking from the action-focused mindset that’s prevalent in web development today to a more RESTful, resource oriented, approach, and see one way to structure your code and route URI requests in PHP.

This is part three in a four-part series exploring REST. After looking at REST from a theoretical perspective and then how you might go about building a REST-oriented system, the series now shows you how to consume such services.

In the previous parts of this series, you learned what REST is, how to develop a RESTful application, and how to consume RESTful services. In this final installment you’ll learn more about the protocol you’ll most likely use in a RESTful application, HTTP.