Classes aren't a Perl concept, they're common to all kinds of languages.

And the question wasn't about the perl API, it was a perl API.

I suspect that what the OP wants to hear is that an API is the interface that a vendor documents and provides so that you can write programs to interact with their software. It could be all kinds of different interfaces, such as SOAP or REST, or a bunch of scripts that you run, or a set of libraries that you can use.

Of those, probably the most common is providing a set of libraries with a well-documented interface. If the vendor specifically provides a perl API, then those libraries will almost certainly be in the form of perl modules that you can use in your code, and they might provide an object-oriented (ie, using classes) interface. But the perl interface might instead be procedural, especially if the perl modules provided are just a thin wrapper around C libraries.


In reply to Re^3: difference b/w API and a class by DrHyde
in thread difference b/w API and a class by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":



  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.