Audoku

Audoku is an Express middleware for documenting and validating/reporting Rest API endpoints. It allows you to get the documentation of your APIs in Json format by calling single endpoints. It follows in some way the unix man pages behaviour, showing how to use (basically which parameters and headers set for) your endpoints, by calling them with a special parameter.

From the v0.1.0 Audoku can also generate and serve the api documentation in web pages format using apidoc, just writing json instead of writing with the apidoc syntax.

• Installation
• Using Audoku
  • function doku(config)
• Serving documentation through Apidoc
  • function apidocs(config)

Installation

To use audoku install it in your Express project by typing:

npm install audoku

Using Audoku

Include Audoku

Just require it like a simple package:

var au = require('audoku');

Using Audoku

Audoku provides a middleware for Express to describe your endpoint parameters and info.

Here the function documentation:

function doku(config)

Builds a function to be used as middleware for single endpoint. Like this:

var router = require('express').Router();
var au = require('audoku');
router.get('/endpoint', au.doku(config), function(req,res){
 
  ...
});
 
 

config parameters

The config argument should be a JSON dictionary containing any of the keys in this example:

{
  'description' : 'This endpoint returns ...'
  'headers' : { ... },
  'fields' : { ... },
  'params' : { ... },
  'bodyFields' : { ... },
  'options' : { ... }
}

Each dictionary can contain several elements defined like the example:

{
  ...
  'fields' : {
    //element definition
      'elementName' : {  // the element name is the key
        'description' : 'The elmement description',  
        'type' : 'string',  // type can be string, integer, float or date
        'required' : true   // true if the element should always be present in the request, default false
      },
 
      // next elements
      ...
     },
  ...
}

headers (dictionary)

A dictionary of elements passed as key-value headers in the request.

fields (dictionary)

The fields passed through the URL after the question mark, like http://example.com/endpoint?key1=value1&key2=value2&etc...

params (dictionary)

The positional parameters in URLS, like:

http://example.com/endpoint/:firstPar/someAction/:secondPar

bodyFields (dictionary)

The fields passed as json dictionary in request body, by using all methods except GET. For example a body of this form:

{
  "field1" : "value1",
  "field2" : "value2",
  ...
}

options (dictionary)

raiseOnError return http 400 with error information if errors are detected

description (string)

A text that describes the endpoint.

Examples

Example of writing the doc with a JSON config, on the endpoint you want to document:

var au = require('audoku');
 
router.get('/books', au.doku({
        'headers': {
            'wonderful': {
                'description': 'A wonderful header',
                'type': 'string',
                'required': false
            }
        },
        'fields': {
            'author': {
                'description': "Book author",
                'type': 'string',
                'required': true
            },
            'genre': {
                'description': 'Book genre',
                'type': 'string',
                'required': true
            },
            'year': {
                'description': 'Book edition year',
                'type': 'integer',
                'required': true
            }
        }
}), function (req, res) {
 
...
 
};

To get the help info just call the endpoint adding the field audoku=help, for example http://example.com/books?audoku=help

and you'll get the following help based upon your endpoint documentation:

{
  "method": "GET",
  "url": "/books",
  "headers": {
    "wonderful": {
      "description": "A wonderful header",
      "type": "string",
      "required": false
    },
    "audoku": {
      "description": "Set the audoku mode as help or report",
      "type": "string",
      "required": false
    }
  },
  "fields": {
    "author": {
      "description": "Book author",
      "type": "string",
      "required": true
    },
    "genre": {
      "description": "Book genre",
      "type": "string",
      "required": true
    },
    "year": {
      "description": "Book edition year",
      "type": "integer",
      "required": true
    },
    "audoku": {
      "description": "Set the audoku mode as help or report",
      "type": "string",
      "required": false
    }
  }
}

Audoku can also provide a way to check if your call to an endpoint is missing any fields, parameters or headers. To do that you have to set the audoku field to report like the others fields, as in this example

http://example.com/books?myfield=200&price=3$&author=kafka&year=last&audoku=report

and you'll get the following JSON:

{
  "fullurl": "http://example.com/books?myfield=200&price=3$&author=kafka&year=last&audoku=report",
  "url": "/books?myfield=200&price=3$&author=kafka&year=last&audoku=report",
  "method": "GET",
  "report": {
    "inputs": {
      "fields": {
        "author": {
          "type": "string",
          "expectedType": "string",
          "correct": true,
          "value": "kafka"
        },
        "audoku": {
          "type": "string",
          "expectedType": "string",
          "correct": true,
          "value": "report"
        }
      }
    },
    "totErrors": 2,
    "totWarnings": 11,
    "errors": {
      "fields": {
        "genre": {
          "message": "Required field 'genre' not found",
          "expectedType": "string"
        },
        "year": {
          "type": "string",
          "expectedType": "integer",
          "correct": false,
          "value": "last",
          "message": "Wrong type"
        }
      }
    },
    "warnings": {
      "headers": {
        "host": {
          "message": "Found undocumented header 'host'",
          "value": "example.com"
        },
        "connection": {
          "message": "Found undocumented header 'connection'",
          "value": "keep-alive"
        }
      },
      "fields": {
        "myfield": {
          "message": "Found undocumented field 'myfield'",
          "value": "200"
        },
        "price": {
          "message": "Found undocumented field 'price'",
          "value": "3$"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

function apidocs(config)

The apidocs function generate the apidoc struct for your documentation and serves it with your app web server.

The config should have the fields like the following example:

var config = {
    metadata: {
            "name": "Api Project",
            "version": "1.0.0",
            "title": "REst web API",
            "url": "https://api.example.com",
            "header": {
                "title": "API Overview",
                "content": "<p>A wonderful set of APIs</p>"
            },
            "footer": {
                "title": "Maintained by ACME",
                "content": "<p>Codebase maintained by ACME</p>\n"
            }
        },
    app: app, // the espress main app
    docspath : '/docs',
    routers: [{
        basepath: "http://localhost:3000/api/v1/books" ,
        router: books // the router passed to "app.use('/api/v1/books', books); "
    },
    {
        basepath: "http://localhost:3000/api/v1/authors" ,
        router: authors // the router passed to "app.use('/api/v1/authors', authors); "
    }]

}

Author

Mauro Mereu ([e-mail])