java api是什么,Java API和库有什么区别？

I know that an API is called a set of functions used to call something, and a library is a collection of classes, but what is actually API in package like java.lang? I can connect to a class like System without using any API here, so why we say as J2SE API rather than J2SE packages?

解决方案

Straight from Wikipedia:

In computer science, an application programming interface (API) is an interface that defines the ways by which an application program may request services from libraries

Java contains many libraries in those packages (Swing, etc.), and the API is the interface by which we request services (perform actions, etc.).