Is there a way to discover all endpoints of a ReST

Question

I'm wondering if its possible to programmatically discover all the endpoints of a particular API.

So for example if I GET this URL with a browser or curl: https://api.twitter.com/1.1/

I might get something like this as a JSON response:

{"TwitterAPI":{
    "version" : 1.1,
    "GET" : {
        "search/" : ["users", "trending"],
        "users/" : ["id", "handle"]
    }
}

Of course Twitter could choose to publish or not publish this format. So as a side question, are there any libraries for Java or Javascript that will automatically map and publish the API routes you created in your controllers?

Answer 1

Some RESTful APIs publish a Web Application Description Language resource (WADL - pronounced like the walk that ducks do - for short). JAX-RS, or at least Jersy webapps will do this by default at the application root URL /application.wadl. It doesn't appear that Twitter's API is one of these. Many REST purists would argue that the API should be self describing and self discoverable simply by interacting with it and seeing what other endpoints it will give you.

More about WADL from wikipedia...

Answer 2

There is no way of programmatically discovering REST services as they do not have a standard registry service.

Apart from doing something insane brute-force search there is no way of finding the right URLs ( not to mention the right parameters). So the only option is documenting your API. For that the best choice I have seen so far is:

• Swagger
• And people also like API Blueprint.