In the earlier days, many software solution providers did not really pay enough attention to documenting their RESTful web APIs, unlike web services, which used Web Services Description Language (WSDL). However, many API vendors soon realized the need for a good API documentation solution in order to accelerate the adoption of their REST API services by customers, and to make it easier for businesses to understand the capabilities of the REST API. As a result, many REST API metadata standards have emerged in the recent past.

Today, you will find a variety of approaches to documenting RESTful web APIs. This chapter describes some of the popular solutions available today for describing, producing, consuming, and visualizing RESTful web services. This learning will definitely help you to quickly learn and use the other API documentation solutions available in the market.

The following solutions are covered in this chapter:

• Web Application Description Language
• RESTful API Modeling Language
• Swagger