A plugin for Yardoc that generates documentation for RESTful web services.
Previous authors: vWorkApp, rknLA, lsegal, spape, DerNalia
Plugin provides custom tags to describe resources (controllers) and resulting objects (models).
If you use an object name in description of resource parameters, it will be linked to the object description.
Bundler will reduce your headaches:
gem 'yard-restful' # in your gemfile
You may need to include the following dependencies as well:
gem 'redcarpet'
gem 'yard'
It also requires the Jeweler gem if you plan to use the rake build tasks.
You'll probably want to add these to your .gitignore as well
.yardoc
public/api
So you'll have to re-genenarte your API on every machine. This should encourage more up to dateness
It is recommended that you use a .yardopts file. The sample below assumes you are using Markdown in your YARD, as does the sample documentation.
--title "My API Documentation"
--plugin restful
--markup markdown
--readme API_README
--output-dir ./public/api
app/models/**/*.rb
app/controllers/**/*.rb
So that way, whenever you want to generate your API docs, you simply need to run only
bundle exec yardoc
Full rails 3 application with documentation
Example documentation, also with frames
Sample controller and sample model
The following tags are provided:
-
@restful_api version
Specifies the resource (controller) or object (model). This tag is compulsory, only classes and methods that include this in their comments are included in the API documentation.
-
@url url
Specifies the URL which someone should use to access that resource.
-
@action action
Specifies the http action (GET, POST, PUT etc.).
-
@required [type] name description
Specifies an argument that must be passed to the service. You can specify as many of these as you need.
-
@optional [type] name description
Specifies an optional argument that may be passed to the service. You can specify as many of these as you need.
-
@response [type] description
Specifies type of the response. Usually just a link to an object.
-
@response_field [type] name description
Further specifies the fields that are returned within the response.
-
@property [type] name description
A property (attribute) of an object.
Examples should always be together in the following order: example_request, example_request_description, example_response, example_response_description (as soon as you write an example_request you need a following example_response and the other way around).
Markdown rendering for the text is activated if a tags text contains a newline (see example).
-
@example_request
An example of the request that is send to the service.
-
@example_request_description
The description text for the example request.
-
@example_response
An example of the response that is returned from the service.
-
@example_response_description
The description text for the example response.
-
@example
Example of an object.
This plugin only documents classes and methods with @restful_api tag. It does not support module documentation.
As always, you can see what tasks are available by running:
rake -T
You can run the template locally over the included sample code by using the following rake tasks:
rake example:generate
rake example:clean