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Common WordPress APIs:
HTTP Request API
Jonathan Bossenger
Learn.WordPress.org

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👋🏽 Welcome!
As you join, let everyone know in the chat where you’re
joining us from, and feel free to share a little about what
you do with WordPress.
Hello!
○ My name is Jonathan Bossenger
○ From Cape Town, South Africa
○ Developer educator at Automattic
○ Sponsored to work with the Training Team
○ jonathanbossenger.com

3. Learn.WordPress.org
HTTP Request API
Jonathan Bossenger

4. Announcements
○ Welcome.
○ Please let me know if you can’t see this slide!
○ We are presenting in focus mode, but please feel free to enable your video.
○ You are welcome to ask questions.
○ You are welcome to post questions in the chat, or unmute to ask questions.

5. Announcements
○ Make sure your local install is ready
○ If I am going too fast, please let me know!
○ We are recording this session and will be posting it to https://wordpress.tv/ afterwards.
○ https://learn.wordpress.org/ - WordPress learning resources
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6. Learning outcomes
○ The HTTP Request API
• What HTTP Request API
⁃ A quick detour into some terminology
⁃ Debugging your HTTP Requests
• How to use the HTTP Request API to fetch data
• How to use the HTTP Request API to send data
• Considering performance
• Advanced HTTP Request API topics

7. Question time
○ On a scale of 1 to 5, how well do you know this topic?

8. Requirements
○ A local WordPress install
○ A text editor
○ An example HTTP API
• https://fakestoreapi.com/
○ A plugin to test HTTP API requests
• https://gist.github.com/jonathanbossenger/41391ce7329a9290215ca7528f35b6b2

9. Let’s go!

10. Terminology
○ API: Application Programming Interface, a set of functions and procedures that allow one
application to interact with another.
○ HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, an application protocol for distributed,
collaborative, hypermedia information systems.
○ HTTP API: A set of functions and procedures that allow one application to interact with
another using the HTTP protocol.

11. Terminology
○ REST: Representational State Transfer, a software architectural style that defines a set of
constraints to be used for creating Web services.
○ HTTP REST API: A set of functions and procedures that allow one application to
interact with another using the HTTP protocol and the REST architectural style (more
commonly called a REST API).

12. Terminology
○ HTTP Request: A request for the server to do something. Requests usually have a method
(GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, etc), a URL, and headers.
○ HTTP Response: A response from the server. Responses usually have a status code (200,
404, 500, etc), headers, and a body.
○ HTTP Client: A program that makes HTTP requests. Browsers are HTTP clients, as are
programs like cURL and Postman.

13. Resources
○ https://fakestoreapi.com/
○ https://gist.github.com/jonathanbossenger/41391ce7329a9290215ca7528f35b6b2
○ https://curl.se/
○ https://www.postman.com/
○ https://developer.wordpress.org/apis/making-http-requests/
○ https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/classes/wp_http/