NelmioApiDocBundle/Resources/doc/index.md

NelmioApiDocBundle
==================

The **NelmioApiDocBundle** bundle allows you to generate a decent documentation
for your APIs.


Installation
------------

Add this bundle to your `composer.json` file:

    {
        "require": {
            "nelmio/api-doc-bundle": "@stable"
        }
    }


**Protip:** you should browse the
[`nelmio/api-doc-bundle`](https://packagist.org/packages/nelmio/api-doc-bundle)
page to choose a stable version to use, avoid the `@stable` meta constraint.

Register the bundle in `app/AppKernel.php`:

    // app/AppKernel.php
    public function registerBundles()
    {
        return array(
            // ...
            new Nelmio\ApiDocBundle\NelmioApiDocBundle(),
        );
    }

Import the routing definition in `routing.yml`:

    # app/config/routing.yml
    NelmioApiDocBundle:
        resource: "@NelmioApiDocBundle/Resources/config/routing.yml"
        prefix:   /api/doc

Enable the bundle's configuration in `app/config/config.yml`:

    # app/config/config.yml
    nelmio_api_doc: ~


Usage
-----

The main problem with documentation is to keep it up to date. That's why the **NelmioApiDocBundle**
uses introspection a lot. Thanks to an annotation, it's really easy to document an API method.

### The ApiDoc() Annotation

The bundle provides an `ApiDoc()` annotation for your controllers:

``` php
<?php

namespace Your\Namespace;

use Nelmio\ApiDocBundle\Annotation\ApiDoc;

class YourController extends Controller
{
    /**
     * This the documentation description of your method, it will appear
     * on a specific pane. It will read all the text until the first
     * annotation.
     *
     * @ApiDoc(
     *  resource=true,
     *  description="This is a description of your API method",
     *  filters={
     *      {"name"="a-filter", "dataType"="integer"},
     *      {"name"="another-filter", "dataType"="string", "pattern"="(foo|bar) ASC|DESC"}
     *  }
     * )
     */
    public function getAction()
    {
    }

    /**
     * @ApiDoc(
     *  description="Create a new Object",
     *  input="Your\Namespace\Form\Type\YourType",
     *  output="Your\Namespace\Class"
     * )
     */
    public function postAction()
    {
    }

    /**
     * @ApiDoc(
     *  description="Returns a collection of Object",
     *  requirements={
     *      {
     *          "name"="limit",
     *          "dataType"="integer",
     *          "requirement"="\d+",
     *          "description"="how many objects to return"
     *      }
     *  },
     *  parameters={
     *      {"name"="categoryId", "dataType"="integer", "required"=true, "description"="category id"}
     *  }
     * )
     */
    public function cgetAction($id)
    {
    }
}
```

The following properties are available:

* `section`: allow to group resources

* `resource`: whether the method describes a main resource or not (default: `false`);

* `description`: a description of the API method;

* `deprecated`: allow to set method as deprecated (default: `false`);

* `filters`: an array of filters;

* `requirements`: an array of requirements;

* `parameters`: an array of parameters;

* `input`: the input type associated to the method (currently this supports Form Types, classes with JMS Serializer
 metadata, and classes with Validation component metadata) useful for POST|PUT methods, either as FQCN or as form type
 (if it is registered in the form factory in the container).

* `output`: the output type associated with the response.  Specified and parsed the same way as `input`.

* `statusCodes`: an array of HTTP status codes and a description of when that status is returned; Example:

``` php
<?php

class YourController
{
    /**
     * @ApiDoc(
     *     statusCodes={
     *         200="Returned when successful",
     *         403="Returned when the user is not authorized to say hello",
     *         404={
     *           "Returned when the user is not found",
     *           "Returned when somehting else is not found"
     *         }
     *     }
     * )
     */
    public function myFunction()
    {
        // ...
    }
}
```

Each _filter_ has to define a `name` parameter, but other parameters are free. Filters are often optional
parameters, and you can document them as you want, but keep in mind to be consistent for the whole documentation.

If you set `input`, then the bundle automatically extracts parameters based on the given type,
and determines for each parameter its data type, and if it's required or not.

For classes parsed with JMS metadata, description will be taken from the properties doc comment, if available.

For Form Types, you can add an extra option named `description` on each field:

``` php
<?php

class YourType extends AbstractType
{
    /**
     * {@inheritdoc}
     */
    public function buildForm(FormBuilder $builder, array $options)
    {
        $builder->add('note', null, array(
            'description' => 'this is a note',
        ));

        // ...
    }
}
```

The bundle will also get information from the routing definition (`requirements`, `pattern`, etc), so to get the
best out of it you should define strict _method requirements etc.

### Other Bundle Annotations

Also bundle will get information from the other annotations:

* @FOS\RestBundle\Controller\Annotations\RequestParam - use as `parameters`

* @FOS\RestBundle\Controller\Annotations\QueryParam - use as `requirements` (when strict parameter is true), `filters` (when strict is false)

* @JMS\SecurityExtraBundle\Annotation\Secure - set `authentification` to true, `authenticationRoles` to the given roles

* @Sensio\Bundle\FrameworkExtraBundle\Configuration\Cache - set `cache`

### PHPDoc

Route functions marked as @deprecated will be set method as deprecation in
documentation.

#### JMS Serializer Features

The bundle has support for some of the JMS Serializer features and use these
extra information in the generated documentation.

##### Group Exclusion Strategy

If your classes use [JMS Group Exclusion
Strategy](http://jmsyst.com/libs/serializer/master/cookbook/exclusion_strategies#creating-different-views-of-your-objects),
you can specify which groups to use when generating the documentation by using
this syntax :

 ```
 input={
     "class"="Acme\Bundle\Entity\User",
     "groups"={"update", "public"}
 }
 ```

In this case the groups 'update' and 'public' are used.

This feature also works for the `output` property.

##### Versioning Objects

If your `output` classes use [versioning capabilities of JMS
Serializer](http://jmsyst.com/libs/serializer/master/cookbook/exclusion_strategies#versioning-objects),
the versioning information will be automatically used when generating the
documentation.

#### Form Types Features

If you use `FormFactoryInterface::createdNamed('', 'your_form_type'`, then by
default the documentation will use the form type name as the prefix
(`your_form_type[param]` ... instead of just `param`).

You can specify which prefix to use with the `name` key:

```
input = {
 "class" = "your_form_type",
 "name" = ""
}
```

#### Used Parsers

By default, all registered parsers are used, but sometimes you may want to
define which parsers you want to use. The `parsers` attribute is used to
configure a list of parsers that will be used:

```
output={
    "class"   = "Acme\Bundle\Entity\User",
    "parsers" = {
        "Nelmio\ApiDocBundle\Parser\JmsMetadataParser",
        "Nelmio\ApiDocBundle\Parser\ValidationParser"
    }
}
```

In this case the parsers `JmsMetadataParser` and `ValidationParser` are used to
generate returned data.

This feature also works for both the `input` and `output` properties.

### Web Interface

You can browse the whole documentation at: `http://example.org/api/doc`.

![](https://github.com/nelmio/NelmioApiDocBundle/raw/master/Resources/doc/webview.png)

![](https://github.com/nelmio/NelmioApiDocBundle/raw/master/Resources/doc/webview2.png)

### On-The-Fly Documentation

By calling an URL with the parameter `?_doc=1`, you will get the corresponding
documentation if available.

### Sandbox

This bundle provides a sandbox mode in order to test API methods. You can
configure this sandbox using the following parameters:

    # app/config/config.yml
    nelmio_api_doc:
        sandbox:
            authentication:             # default is `~` (`null`), if set, the sandbox automatically
                                        # send authenticated requests using the configured `delivery`

                name: access_token      # access token name or query parameter name or header name

                delivery: query         # `query`, `http_basic`, and `header` are supported

                custom_endpoint: true   # default is `false`, if `true`, your user will be able to
                                        # specify its own endpoint

            enabled:  true              # default is `true`, you can set this parameter to `false`
                                        # to disable the sandbox

            endpoint: http://sandbox.example.com/   # default is `/app_dev.php`, use this parameter
                                                    # to define which URL to call through the sandbox

            accept_type: application/json           # default is `~` (`null`), if set, the value is
                                                    # automatically populated as the `Accept` header

            body_format: form                       # default is `form`, determines whether to send
                                                    # `x-www-form-urlencoded` data or json-encoded
                                                    # data (by setting this parameter to `json`) in
                                                    # sandbox requests

            request_format:
                method: format_param    # default `format_param`, alternately `accept_header`,
                                        # decides how to request the response format

                default_format: json    # default `json`, alternately `xml`, determines which
                                        # content format to request back by default

### Command

A command is provided in order to dump the documentation in `json`, `markdown`, or `html`.

    php app/console api:doc:dump [--format="..."]

The `--format` option allows to choose the format (default is: `markdown`).

For example to generate a static version of your documentation you can use:

    php app/console api:doc:dump --format=html > api.html

By default, the generated HTML will add the sandbox feature if you didn't disable it in the configuration.
If you want to generate a static version of your documentation without sandbox, use the `--no-sandbox` option.


Configuration In-Depth
----------------------

You can specify your own API name:

    # app/config/config.yml
    nelmio_api_doc:
        name: My API

The bundle provides a way to register multiple `input` parsers. The first parser
that can handle the specified input is used, so you can configure their
priorities via container tags. Here's an example parser service registration:

    #app/config/config.yml
    services:
        mybundle.api_doc.extractor.custom_parser:
            class: MyBundle\Parser\CustomDocParser
            tags:
                - { name: nelmio_api_doc.extractor.parser, priority: 2 }

You can also define your own motd content (above methods list). All you have to
do is add to configuration:

    #app/config/config.yml
    nelmio_api_doc:
        # ...
        motd:
            template: AcmeApiBundle::Components/motd.html.twig

### Using Your Own Annotations

If you have developed your own project-related annotations, and you want to parse them to populate
the `ApiDoc`, you can provide custom handlers as services. You just have to implement the
`Nelmio\ApiDocBundle\Extractor\HandlerInterface` and tag it as `nelmio_api_doc.extractor.handler`:

    # app/config/config.yml
    services:
        mybundle.api_doc.extractor.my_annotation_handler:
            class: MyBundle\AnnotationHandler\MyAnnotationHandler
            tags:
                - { name: nelmio_api_doc.extractor.handler }

Look at the built-in [Handlers](https://github.com/nelmio/NelmioApiDocBundle/tree/master/Extractor/Handler).


### Reference Configuration

``` yaml
nelmio_api_doc:
    name:                     API documentation
    motd:
        template:             NelmioApiDocBundle::Components/motd.html.twig
    request_listener:
        enabled:              true
        parameter:            _doc
    sandbox:
        enabled:              true
        endpoint:             ~
        accept_type:          ~
        body_format:          form
        request_format:
            method:               format_param
            default_format:       json
        authentication:
            name:                 ~ # Required
            delivery:             ~ # Required
            custom_endpoint:      false
```