An API refers to the rules and guidelines and protocols etc that are set forth by a library. In other words, a library has an API. So API is really more of a description of a library, whereas a library is an actual physical chunk of code (well, as physical as code gets).
The easy way to think about this is an API is a specification and the library is an implementation. One API can have many, many implementations. There is Windows and there is WINE for instance. Both implement the Windows GUI APIs.
Friday, February 17, 2006
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