API Caching

What is API

API is the acronym for Application Programming Interface, which is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other.  Think of it like a translator 1 piece of software speaks English and the other speaks Spanish - now you need a translator which we call the API.

How Our API Works

The Buddyboss App runs from your Wordpress database. So lets say your Wordpress database where all your data is held about your users, activity posts, media etc speak English and your Buddyboss App which is written in the popular React Native language speak Spanish.

Now lets say you are in the App in your Activity Feed page, what this is doing is reaching out to your wordpress database to check for post on a regular bases but if we didn’t have an API in between translating the data backwards and forwards all the time then the App would just be empty.

The API is Buddyboss’s crown jewel, our magic box of tricks, that allows you to run an app using your Wordpress platform in the way that we do.

What is Caching 

Now you have learned the 101 about API's. Now I will give an overview on caching and then you will understand ‘API Caching’.

Caching is the storage of static content (content that doesn’t change on a regular basis such as images or text) that is stored on a device so that when you revisit that specific app or website page from that device it has remembered the static content to help with faster app or website loading times… 

API Caching

Now you have an understanding of caching and what an API does, you may have a good idea why we have API caching. Although the API is not technically text or media that it is remembering its instead queries that are used to get the right data from the Wordpress database which like we suggested speaks English, so instead of the app directly querying the database it queries the API in Spanish and the API converts from Spanish to English then queries the database for the correct information converts that from English back to Spanish and then delivers it to the App to display to you…

Now you can imagine how fast you need an API to work so as to not slow down the process that's why we are always working on making it more efficient, and that's where API Caching finally comes in to remember as many queries as possible to help speed up the process.

Related Material

How to enable API Caching in BuddyBoss App