Plugin: Difference between API and actual route

[cool]

//Plugin's library.js
plugin.init = function(params, callback) {
var router = params.router,
hostMiddleware = params.middleware,
hostControllers = params.controllers;

// We create two routes for every view. One API call, and the actual route itself.

router.get('/map', hostMiddleware.buildHeader, controllers.renderMapPage);
router.get('/api/map', controllers.renderMapPage);
callback();

};

Ref: We create two routes for every view. One API call, and the actual route itself.
What exactly is the difference between these two routes/ What does API call mean?

[PitaJ]

The API route doesn't render a template. It just outputs the JSON that is passed into render.

You can test this by prepending /api on any route, you'll see JSON output.

The purpose of this is for the AJAX loading of the next page.