What is API Surface Area?

Question

I've been reading up on .NET Core vs Standard vs. Framework, and people are talking about API Surface Area. What does this refer to? Is this just the collective amount of functionality?

Answer 1

You can say API surface area as peice of code or program that our code can interact with.

For example : .NET Standard libraries come with everything in NETStandard.Library whereas .NET Core libraries come with everything in Microsoft.NETCore.App which has some additional libraries.

As you can see .NET core projects are likely to interact with more programs compared to .NET Standard libraries as it has addional libraries.