To answer the interview question "Enlist some important constraints for RESTful web services," you can mention the following six key constraints that define a RESTful API:
Client-Server Architecture:
This constraint separates the client and server roles, allowing them to evolve independently. The client handles the user interface and user-related functions, while the server manages data storage, operations, and performance. This separation improves the portability of the user interface across multiple platforms and enhances scalability by simplifying server components[1][2][4][6].
Statelessness:
Each client request to the server must contain all the information needed to understand and process the request. The server does not store any state about the client session between requests. This makes the server more scalable and simplifies its design, as it does not need to manage resource usage across requests[1][2][4][5][7].
Cacheability:
Responses from the server must be explicitly or implicitly marked as cacheable or non-cacheable. If a response is cacheable, the client can store it and reuse it for future equivalent requests. This reduces the need for repeated client-server interactions, improving scalability and performance[1][2][4][5][7].
Uniform Interface:
This constraint simplifies and decouples the architecture by ensuring a standardized way of interacting with the server. It is based on four principles: resource identification in requests...
