Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Writing Comprehensive and Guaranteed Up-to-date REST API Documentation

By Andreas Evers@andreasevers

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Keep the documentation accurate

2

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Document in the right place

3

Controller

Jackson

Response Entity

HTTP response

POJO

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Keep it DRY

4

@ResponseStatus(CREATED)HttpHeaders create( @RequestBody UserInput userInput) { …}

@ExceptionHandler( IllegalArgumentException.class)ResponseEntity<Void> illegalArgument() { return new ResponseEntity<>(BAD_REQUEST);}

@ApiResponses({@ApiResponse(code=400, message="…"),@ApiResponse(code=201, message="…")})

return new ResponseEntity<>(BAD_REQUEST);

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Write docs in markdown or asciidoc

5

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 / 6

generated snippets

manually written template

generated HTML

integration

Icons created by Richard Slater, Ryan Choi, Guillaume Bahri, iconsmind.com from Noun Project

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Integration test

7

this.mockMvc.perform(get("/cars/{carId}","1")) .andExpect(status().isOk()) .andDo(document("cars",

pathParameters(parameterWithName("carId").description("Id of the car")),

responseFields(fieldWithPath("brand").description("Brand of the car")).and(this.otherFields)));

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Request snippets

8

[source,bash]----$ curl 'http://localhost:8080/cars/1' -i----

[source,bash]----$ http GET 'http://localhost:8080/cars/1'----

Curl Request

HTTPie Request (new in 1.1)

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Request snippets

9

[source,http,options="nowrap"]----GET /cars/1 HTTP/1.1Host: localhost

----

HTTP Request

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Request path parameters snippet

10

./cars/{carId}|===|Parameter|Description

|carId|Id of the car

|===

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Response snippet

11

[source,http,options=“nowrap"]----HTTP/1.1 200 OKContent-Type: application/json;charset=UTF-8Content-Length: 150

{ "brand" : "BMW", "constructionYear" : 2010}----

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

All snippets

12

Request- Curl request- HTTP request- HTTPie request

Request fields

Request path parameters

Request parameters

Request headers

Request parts (new in 1.1)

Response

Response fields

Hypermedia links

Response headers

Response fields

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Documentation template

13

[[resources-car-get]]=== Retrieving a carFor retrieving a car, the following path parameter has to be used to indicate which car to retrieve:

include::{snippets}/car-get/path-parameters.adoc[]

For example, a curl request for the first car in the repository looks like this:

include::{snippets}/car-get/curl-request.adoc[]

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Documentation HTML

14

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Demo

15

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Easy to package the documentationin your project’s jar file

16

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Easy to customize the request or response before it is documented

17

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Support for reusing common documentation

18

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Easy to add extra information to the snippets

19

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Easy to document constraints of fields

20

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Easy to ignore parts of the request or response during documentation

21

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Possibility to switch off failing on inaccurate documentation

22

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Easy to mark parts of the request or response as optional

23

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Support for both JSON and XML

24

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Support for REST Assured

25

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Ideal for brownfield stubbing

26

Unless o therw ise ind ica ted , these s l ides are © 2013-2016 P ivo ta l So f tware , Inc . and l i censed under a Creat ive Commons At t r ibu t ion-NonCommerc ia l l i cense: h t tp : / / c rea t ivecommons.org / l i censes /by-nc /3 .0 /

Thank you for your attention

@andreasevers

http://projects.spring.io/spring-restdocs/https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-restdocs

@springcentralspring.io/blog

@pivotalpivotal.io/blog

@pivotalcfhttp://engineering.pivotal.io