Definition of Application program interface

Babylon English
Application Program Interface
part of the operating system which supplies applications with a uniform user interface, API

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Application program interface definition was found in categories: Computer & Internet(3)  Science & Technology(1)  Language, Idioms & Slang(1)  Encyclopedia(1)  

Application program interface Definition from Computer & Internet Dictionaries & Glossaries

FOLDOC
Application Program Interface
<programming> (API, or "application programming interface") The interface (calling conventions) by which an application program accesses operating system and other services. An API is defined at source code level and provides a level of abstraction between the application and the kernel (or other privileged utilities) to ensure the portability of the code.
An API can also provide an interface between a high level language and lower level utilities and services which were written without consideration for the calling conventions supported by compiled languages. In this case, the API's main task may be the translation of parameter lists from one format to another and the interpretation of call-by-value and call-by-reference arguments in one or both directions.
(1995-02-15)

Jensen's Technology Glossary
API
Application Program Interface by which an application program accesses operating system.An API can also provide an interface between a high level language and lower level utilities and services which were written without consideration for the calling conventions supported by compiled languages. Netscape Corporation and Microsoft both provide APIs called NSAPI and ISAPI that essentially extend their web servers, and it provides developers a way to put application code actually within the web server. This means that you don’t have to start up a separate process each time one of these applications is called. And, since that application is always running, it can maintain connections to the database.

Internetworking Terms
Application Program Interface
A set of calling conventions which define how a service is invoked through a software package. [Source: RFC1208]


Application program interface Definition from Science & Technology Dictionaries & Glossaries

Telecommunication Standard Terms
application program interface (API)
A formalized set of software calls and routines that can be referenced by an application program in order to access supporting network services.


Application program interface Definition from Language, Idioms & Slang Dictionaries & Glossaries

hEnglish - advanced version
application program interface

application program interface
(api, or "application programming interface") the interface (calling conventions) by which an application program accesses operating system and other services. an api is defined at source code level and provides a level of abstraction between the application and the kernel (or other privileged utilities) to ensure the portability of the code.



Application program interface Definition from Encyclopedia Dictionaries & Glossaries

Wikipedia English - The Free Encyclopedia
Application programming interface
An application programming interface (API) is a source code interface that an operating system or library provides to support requests for services to be made of it by computer programs.

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