Documentation generation for web APIs based on byte code analysis

摘要

Documentation for an application or web service, such as a web application programming interface (API), is generated by analyzing bytecode for the application itself. Metadata contained within the bytecode and that specifies the functionality of the web service is extracted and used as a template and basis for documentation. A second source of documentation, which contains detailed documentation of the web service, is contributed by the web service developer and merged with the metadata extracted from the bytecode.

主权项

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
obtaining bytecode corresponding to a web service that includes an application programming interface (API); identifying a particular annotation included in the bytecode, wherein an annotation comprises text that is included in source code, and that a compiler preserves in bytecode that is generated from the source code; identifying one or more parameters associated with the web service from the particular annotation included in the bytecode; generating a template for documentation for the API of the web service, wherein the template specifies the one or more parameters that are identified from the particular annotation included in the bytecode; obtaining a plurality of code notes, wherein each of the plurality of code notes comprises a description of the web service; and merging the template and at least a portion of the plurality of code notes to generate the documentation for the API of the web service; and wherein generating the template for documentation for the API of the web service comprises generating one or more documentation indices, wherein each index maps one or more parameters from an annotation to a code note.