difference between client API and server API [closed]

Question

As mentioned in the topic, can someone explain the relationship between the client API and the server API?

For example, we have a web with its server written in java and use Axis2. I get access to the source code and find there is a folder called 'client_API' and all the codes are written in JAVA. What exactly does client API do? It works at server side or client side?(From its name I think it should work on the client side, but the client side is just a user's browser, but how could a browser read the JAVA code?).

Answer 1

When you say that something is in Client-Side, this means it is executing on your application context. Server-Side means it will be executed from another machine, a remote machine, a server.

In fact, when we say something is server-side, in many cases, we are considering it will be executed in the server or a remote machine but we also can says that is a web service or a SOA - Service-oriented architecture based application, REST based applications.

For sample: the Web Browser (client) execute some code (client-side code), and make requests to server side that will execute some code there (server-side) and response something to the client. Look the image:

_{(source: webstepbook.com)}

Answer 2

Web services are generally describes as client and server but perhaps you'd prefer the classical Stubs and Skeletons explanation. The client_api is a stub. From the wikipedia article,

The stub acts as a gateway for client side objects and all outgoing requests to server side objects that are routed through it.