How do I discover RESTful Web services?

Question

When I want to find a \"Big\" Web service (WS-*/WSDL based) of required functionality I can simply google for \".... filetype:wsdl\" because Google indexes also WSDL definit

Answer 1

There's a WSDL-like file for REST webservices: it's called WADL.

Answer 2

There is a convention (recommended in REST API Design Handbook for example) that you expose a /api endpoint at the root of your service. This returns an XML or JSON response containing the "child" resources that your service supports e.g. /api/products

Answer 3

The REST ideal is that services are as consumable as Web Pages are, they don't need registries. [Got to admit I don't fully "get" the implications of this RESTful world, no WSDL, no registry feels like riding a bike with no stabilisers.]

In the old Web, pre-Google, how did we find pages? Effectively word-of-mouth and a few key starting points. REST services so far as I can see are pretty much in the pre-Google stage.

I don't agree that "it is not possible to distinguish between URI of RESTful Web service and other Web resources" - if we follow the link we get certain types of content application/xml and application/json would be pretty strong indicators wouldn't they?

Answer 4

SoapUI now can discover the REST services. It works as a proxy, writing down all requests/responses that pass through. Having requests and responses SoapUI recreates descriptions/definitions of the services. Now the definitions can be stored in WADL and WSDL formats (as WSDL and XML-Schema in XML world). It also can be stored in Swagger format. I prefer Swagger. Swagger can be stored in SwaggerHub right from SoapUI, which is like GitHub for source code. SwaggerHub is one of many API management systems.