is this possible that software aplication provides no API ?

Question

say i want to integrate my application with some existing application that provides no API - do i need to first develop API for the existing application and then develop an integration code to link my application to this existing one?

or is it that each application has API always?

Answer 1

Q: Is this possible that software aplication provides no API ?

A: Yes, the app does NOT have to provide API (interface to other programs), many may {but not must] have some [undocumented] APIs though...

Basically if the application does NOT have an API [undocumented or other], you might have a problem creating an API yourself, it depends on what the program does... Imagine a program that reads some data [from socket for example] and draws a complex chart [to screen only], I do not think that you will be able to provide ANY api to such a program yourself...

Answer 2

apps can have no api.



it would be hard to "use" an app without an exposed api, unless the application you want to "use" is just a "command line" application that reads from stdio and write to stdout, or act some way. In this case, if there are no "quirks", you can drive it using popen. If the application gives some support for such an integration, it would be better anyway (just used gdb in kdgb few seconds ago... gdb does not expose an api, nonetheless you can "drive" it using e.g. -q flag and popen, in this case kgdb provides a gui for gdb)



otherwise, you should have the code of the app you want to exploit in order to develop integration code, de facto creating yourself the api you needed!

Answer 3

In 35 years of programming, I don't think I've written a program with an API more than 100 times, and never in the last 10 years. APIs are NOT a requirement of programs.