Using Open Data Protocol with RESTful web APIs
REST is an architecture style for sending messages back and forth from the client to the server over HTTP. The REST architectural style does not define any standard for querying and updating data. Open Data Protocol (OData) defines a web protocol for querying and updating data via RESTful web APIs uniformly. Many companies, including Microsoft, IBM, and SAP, support OData today, and it is governed by Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS). Currently, the latest release of OData is Version 4.0.
A quick look at OData
OData provides you with a uniform way of describing the data and the data model. This helps you to consume the REST APIs from various vendors uniformly. Let's take a quick look at some of the core features offered in OData with some examples.
URI convention for OData-based REST APIs
The OData specification defines a set of recommendations for forming the URIs that identify OData-based REST APIs. The...