Browsing by Author "Sohan, S M"

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    Automated Example Oriented REST API Documentation
    (2017) Sohan, S M; Maurer, Frank; Anslow, Craig; Wang, Mea
    API documentation presents both a problem and an opportunity for API usability. REST APIs provide interconnectivity between applications over HTTP. Documentation of a REST API is a key information source for API client developers. Most REST APIs are documented using a manual approach, which can be time consuming and error-prone. REST API developers need to efficiently document their APIs with qualities that make the API usable. In this research, I focused on the topic of automated REST API documentation to satisfy this need. In this thesis, I present and evaluate a novel technique to solve REST API documentation requirements. I present a set of REST API documentation requirements by studying the existing literature and the current industry practice. From this study, I observed that REST APIs evolve frequently, but used a manual or bespoke approach for generating and maintaining their documentation. I present, SpyREST, a reusable technique with a prototype implementation to automate the REST API documentation process with executable API usage examples. The technique involves the interception of example REST API calls from API test code using an HTTP proxy server to auto-generate an accurate and updated REST API documentation. I present an industrial evaluation of the proposed technique based on a period of eighteen months of production use. From this study, I found that it was feasible to leverage API test code to automatically generate an always-updated REST API documentation for evolving REST APIs with usage examples. To evaluate the impact of usage examples on REST API client developers, I performed a controlled study with experienced REST API developers. From this case study, I found that REST API client developers faced patterns of obstacles using REST APIs that can be reduced by including API usage examples in the API documentation, as suggested in the proposed technique. The findings of this research can be used as a guideline for practitioners to automatically generate REST API documentation with usage examples. Researchers can extend the novel concept of using interception to automatically document API usage examples for other forms of APIs.