What is CRUD?

CRUD is an acronym that stands for Create, Retrieve/Read, Update, Delete. It represents the basic facilities that an application must provide to its users.

What are the applications of CRUD?

Let's look at a word editor—one of the most common applications ever.

The word editor must have functions that allow you to:

  1. Create new documents
  2. View all documents that have been created in the past
  3. Update documents that you've already created
  4. Delete documents

We can drill this down to even the level of text written in one document. (Say what now? 🧐)

Well, any text editor that you use should allow you to:

  1. Add more text
  2. Edit existing text
  3. Delete text
  4. View all the text that has been added to the document

And that's CRUD! (Ta-daa 🙃)

CRUD for databases and APIs

CRUD is usually used in the context of databases or APIs. Here's how CRUD maps to the major functionalities offered by databases and APIs:

Databases

For relational databases (such as MySQL), CRUD maps to the major functions of SQL (the querying language that you use to work with relational databases):

  1. Create: INSERT
  2. Retrieve: SELECT
  3. Update: UPDATE
  4. Delete: DELETE

APIs

In case of APIs, this is how CRUD maps:

  1. Create: POST/PUT
  2. Retrieve: GET
  3. Update: POST/PUT/PATCH
  4. Delete: DELETE

Think we're missing something? 🧐 Help us update this article by sending us your suggestions here. 🙏

See also

Articles you might be interested in

  1. What is CRUD?
  2. How CRUD operations work, examples, tutorials and more
  3. Writing a CRUD app with Node.js and MongoDB