Exploring
the mootools website is a good idea, if we want to create an original interface.
APIs and Web Services
The terms API (Application Programming Interface) and web service when used
together describe how we access remote third-party services from an application. We
can use web services and APIs in our Joomla! extensions.
This chapter explores some of the Joomla! API, specifically in relation to web
services. We will also discuss some of the more common web services and take a
more in-depth look at the Yahoo! Search API.
The final section of this chapter investigates how to implement web services of our
own, using XML-RPC plugins. For more information about plugins please refer to
Chapter 6.
XML
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is often used to send and receive web service
data. It is important that we understand how XML is structured so that we can
interact with such web services.
This example demonstrates how a typical XML document is constructed:
Some Data
The first line of code is known as the XML declaration.
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