UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY Automated Example Oriented REST API ...

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

Automated Example Oriented REST API Documentation

by

S M Sohan

A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

CALGARY, ALBERTA September, 2017

? S M Sohan 2017

UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES

The undersigned certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate Studies for acceptance, a thesis entitled "Automated Example Oriented REST API Documenation" submitted by S M Sohan in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY.

Dr. Frank Maurer Supervisor

Department of Computer Science University of Calgary, Canada

Dr. Mea Wang Supervisory Committee Member Department of Computer Science

University of Calgary, Canada

Dr. Craig Anslow Supervisory Committee Member

School of Engineering and Computer Science

Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

Dr. Nils Daniel Forkert Internal Examiner

Department of Radiology and Hotchkiss Brain Institute

University of Calgary, Canada

Dr. Yves Lucet External Examiner Computer Science University of British Columbia (Okanagan), Canada

Date

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Abstract

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 of 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 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 by 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.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Shahana, my wife, for supporting me and the family while I took an unacceptable amount of the time and attention away from them to work on this research.

I am thankful to my supervisor Dr. Frank Maurer for giving me the opportunity and valuable guidance to pursue this research. I am also thankful to Dr. Craig Anslow for his continuous encouragement and the countless number of hours that he spent to provide feedback about my work.

I am grateful to Cisco for allowing me to pursue this research alongside my job. I am grateful to the study participants in my case studies for sharing their time with me on the experiments.

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