API New Year

[billyblue]

I'll get my coat :P

I am new to the concept of an API if I am honest. I am looking for a bit of guidance of how best to incorporate it into ASP.NET.

Starting with the basics. I have outlined below how I think it could work (excuse my ignorance if this is completely off track, I'm a beginner).

I want to create an API that allows clients to communicate with our site.

This is how we'd communicate.

Client --[XML]--> MySite
Client <--[XML]-- MySite

These would be sent by https.

Now at my end I was thinking of the following format.

1. A page say 'catch.vb' that accepts the https message. This page would extract the required info from the XML document then act upon it. If validation was required it would happen here.

Say the xml specified it wanted to performActionX. The required variables would then be passed on to 'performActionX.vb'.

2. performActionX.vb would then do the business based on the variables it accepted from 'catch.vb'. The results would then be passed onto a third page 'throw.vb'.

3. Throw.vb would insert the results into an xml document and send it to the client via https.

How does this sound? Again I must reiterate I am a newbie here so be gentle. Also would appreciate any response in layman's terms

Thanks for reading

BB