Re: Self-documenting API Proposal

[Jeff Kowalczyk <..hidden..>]

--- Chris Travers <..hidden..> wrote:
> After thinking a great deal about Josh Berkus's suggestion that we use
> a text file with some sort of self-documenting API capabilities.

Did that mean the documentation of the 90% stored procedure API, or the
automation API of the 10% layer in perl?

Is there a thread title or direct link for Josh's suggestion? I'd like to read
it.

> general, I like this idea, but I was wondering if it was a good idea
> to store this in the database.

How are the introspection abilities of postgresql for stored procedures? If the
self-documenting tool could return the SP signature and a documentation string
or comment formatted by convention (akin to a python docstring), that would be
a big help for that part of the API.
 
> One option is to have a functions catalog which would allow us to
> create our own functions and properly documnet them in the databsase
> with one call.  This would then store the object name, the function
> name, and the parameters in catalog tables which we could then use in
> the application in order to do the object method to stored proceedure
> mapping.

Presuming you mean postresql functions here and not the perl layer, it seems
like it would be a problem to ensure they stay in sync with the installed
function or perl source. Better to have the API introspected on demand, if the
system can do that sufficiently well.


 
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