Effectively handle and extract data from JSON responses returned by an API.
After a client sends a request to an API, the server processes it and sends back an HTTP response. This response consists of a status code, headers, and often a body containing data. For REST APIs, this body is typically a JSON string. The first step for a client is to check the HTTP status code to determine if the request was successful. A code in the `2xx` range (e.g., `200 OK`, `201 Created`) indicates success, while codes in the `4xx` range (e.g., `404 Not Found`, `400 Bad Request`) indicate a client error, and `5xx` codes indicate a server error. If the request was successful, the next step is to parse the JSON body. Most HTTP client libraries, like Python's `requests`, provide a convenient helper method (e.g., `response.json()`) that handles this for you. This method reads the response body, verifies that it's valid JSON, and deserializes it into a native data structure (a dictionary or list in Python). Once the JSON is parsed, you can access the data within it just like you would with any other dictionary or list in your programming language, using keys or indices to retrieve specific values. It's also good practice to wrap data access in error handling (like a `try...except` block) in case the API response doesn't contain the expected keys, which can happen if the API is updated or if there was an unexpected issue. Properly parsing and handling JSON responses is essential for building applications that consume API data.