idempotent

Intermediate 💻 Tech / IT

Definition

An operation that produces the same result no matter how many times you execute it—like pressing an elevator button repeatedly when you're late. In API design, it's the difference between a well-behaved request and one that creates 47 duplicate orders.

Example Usage

Make sure that DELETE endpoint is idempotent, or we'll have angry customers wondering why their account was deleted five times.

Origin

From Latin 'idem' (same) and 'potent' (power), borrowed from mathematics in the 1870s, adopted by computer science in the 1960s

Fun Fact

The HTTP methods GET, PUT, and DELETE are supposed to be idempotent, but POST is the wild child that makes no such promises.

Source: RESTful API design standards and distributed systems literature

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