Specification and Automated Analysis of Inter-Parameter Dependencies in Web APIs

Web services often impose inter-parameter dependencies that restrict the way in which two or more input parameters can be combined to form valid calls service. Unfortunately, current specification languages for web like OpenAPI Specification (OAS) provide no support formal description of such dependencies, makes it hardly possible automatically discover and interact with without human intervention. In this article, we present an approach automated analysis APIs. We first a domain-specific language, called Inter-parameter Dependency Language (IDL), among services. Then, propose mapping translate IDL document into constraint satisfaction problem (CSP), enabling specifications using standard CSP-based reasoning operations. Specifically, catalogue seven operations on documents allowing compute, example, whether given request satisfies all Finally, tool suite including editor, parser, OAS extension, programming-aided library, test supporting their analyses. Together, these contributions pave new range specification-driven applications areas as code generation testing.