DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports Events Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
  1. DZone
  2. Data Engineering
  3. Databases
  4. API Documentation with IODocs

API Documentation with IODocs

Lorna Mitchell user avatar by
Lorna Mitchell
·
Sep. 19, 12 · Interview
Like (0)
Save
Tweet
Share
9.58K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

i write a lot of apis, and i also preach that your api isn't finished until it has excellent documentation. which is great, but that means i therefore have to lead by example and document my apis. enter iodocs from the talented folks at mashery.

iodocs is a node.js application (which is fun for a php developer. most developers write a bit of js, but this one hasn't). you describe your api and all its methods in json, and then iodocs presents an interface for you to enter api keys, add parameters to each request and press the "try it!" button. this makes your api call and shows you the results on screen, which seems like a great way to demonstrate what all the various parameters do!

iodocs screenshot

the setup and installation was pretty straightforward - node.js apps all have a packages.json file which states their dependencies and the npm package manager knows what to do. so you just grab the app from github and npm install and it pretty much worked. i had a problem with an older version of node.js (i had 0.8.2, when i upgraded to 0.8.9 it was all fine) but i figured it out.

i like the iodocs as a way of showing to the user what you can do with the api before they have to settle down and write some code. for example, on joind.in , you can request lists of events using various criteria, and iodocs presents form fields for that:

iodocs screenshot

if you want to have a play, i deployed this to heroku (blog post coming on that too, if you like) so you're welcome to click around: http://lornajane-iodocs.herokuapp.com/joindinv2 . there are descriptions of other apis too, and i've seen a few sites using this (which is where i came across it). the big stumbling block at the moment is the lack of oauth2 support (as both joind.in and github use this, i'd quite like it!) but the mashery devs have promised to get back to me on that so watch this space ...

API Documentation

Published at DZone with permission of Lorna Mitchell, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Popular on DZone

  • Project Hygiene
  • Promises, Thenables, and Lazy-Evaluation: What, Why, How
  • Core Machine Learning Metrics
  • Public Cloud-to-Cloud Repatriation Trend

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 600 Park Offices Drive
  • Suite 300
  • Durham, NC 27709
  • support@dzone.com
  • +1 (919) 678-0300

Let's be friends: