restub

Build your traceable REST API client with a few lines of code.

Welcome

restub is a stub framework for implementing REST API clients with built-in tracing.
Trace log contains all requests, responses, headers, parameters, error codes and timings.
Uses RestSharp library and Newtonsoft.Json serializer behind the scenes.

Getting started

• Add the Nuget package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/restub
• Subclass RestubClient, add REST API methods
• Implement request and response classes used by your REST API service
• Add authentication support by subclassing Authenticator, if needed

Sample REST client

public class GithubClient : RestubClient
{
  public GithubClient() : base("https://api.github.com/")
  { 
  }

  public GithubUser GetUser(string name) =>
    Get<GithubUser>($"users/{name}");
}

Sample DTO class

public class GithubUser
{
  public int ID { get; set; }
  public string Url { get; set; }
  public string Login { get; set; }
  public string Name { get; set; }
}

Sample REST client usage

// connect to Github API
var client = new GithubClient();

// trace all API calls to the console
client.Tracer = Console.WriteLine;

// get user by name
var orgs = client.GetUser("yallie");

Advantages

• Get a full-featured REST API client with just a few lines of code
• Execute HTTP GET, POST, HEAD, PUT, PATCH, OPTIONS or DELETE requests
• Enable built-in tracing with a single line of code
• Explore API calls logs within your IDE while running the unit tests
• Use unannotated POCO classes for requests and responses
• Enums serialized as numbers and/or strings can be mixed within the same API
• Optionally add standard DataMember/EnumMember attributes for more control
• Implement Authenticator if your API requires authentication
• Supports synchronous and asynchronous request execution
• Targets .NET 4.6.2 and .NET 6.0 frameworks

Disadvantages

• No support for XML serialization
• Depends on RestSharp and Newtonsoft.Json libraries.

Trace log

A typical trace log looks like this:

// GetAuthToken
-> POST https://api.edu.cdek.ru/v2/oauth/token?parameters
headers: {
  X-ApiClientName = restub v0.1.6.37278
  X-ApiMethodName = GetAuthToken
  Accept = application/json, text/json, text/x-json, text/javascript, application/xml, text/xml
  Content-type = application/json
}
body: null

<- OK 200 (OK) https://api.edu.cdek.ru/v2/oauth/token?parameters
timings: {
  started: 2022-09-23 19:51:16
  elapsed: 0:00:00.719
}
headers: {
  Transfer-Encoding = chunked
  Connection = keep-alive
  Keep-Alive = timeout=15
  Vary = Accept-Encoding
  Pragma = no-cache
  X-Content-Type-Options = nosniff
  X-XSS-Protection = 1; mode=block
  X-Frame-Options = DENY
  Content-Encoding = 
  Cache-Control = no-store
  Content-Type = application/json;charset=utf-8
  Date = Fri, 23 Sep 2022 16:51:18 GMT
  Server = QRATOR
}
body: {
  "access_token": "eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1Ni....eq62ZCji34UPjozvWCUXv16ZvTA",
  "token_type": "bearer",
  "expires_in": 3599,
  "scope": "order:all payment:all",
  "jti": "be19866f-0d95-4287-b1ff-cad84e113c3c"
}

// GetRegions
-> GET https://api.edu.cdek.ru/v2/location/regions?size=3&page=2
headers: {
  X-ApiClientName = restub v0.1.6.37278
  X-ApiMethodName = GetRegions
  Authorization = Bearer eyJhbGciOiJSUzI1Ni....eq62ZCji34UPjozvWCUXv16ZvTA
  Accept = application/json, text/json, text/x-json, text/javascript, application/xml, text/xml
}

<- OK 200 (OK) https://api.edu.cdek.ru/v2/location/regions?size=2&page=3
timings: {
  started: 2022-09-23 19:55:56
  elapsed: 0:00:00.859
}
headers: {
  Transfer-Encoding = chunked
  Connection = keep-alive
  Keep-Alive = timeout=15
  Vary = Accept-Encoding
  X-Content-Type-Options = nosniff
  X-XSS-Protection = 1; mode=block
  Pragma = no-cache
  X-Frame-Options = DENY
  Content-Encoding = 
  Cache-Control = no-cache, no-store, max-age=0, must-revalidate
  Content-Type = application/json
  Date = Fri, 23 Sep 2022 16:55:58 GMT
  Expires = 0
  Server = QRATOR
}
body: [
  {
    "country_code": "FR",
    "country": "Франция",
    "region": "Марна",
    "region_code": 590
  },
  {
    "country_code": "FR",
    "country": "Франция",
    "region": "Ло и Гаронна",
    "region_code": 560
  }
]

restub versioning

The project uses Nerdbank.GitVersioning tool to manage versions.
Each library build can be traced back to the original git commit.

Preparing and publishing a new release

1. Make sure that nbgv dotnet CLI tool is installed and is up to date
2. Run nbgv prepare-release to create a stable branch for the upcoming release, i.e. release/v1.0
3. Switch to the release branch: git checkout release/v1.0
4. Execute unit tests, update the README, release notes in csproj file, etc. Commit and push your changes.
5. Run dotnet pack -c Release and check that it builds Nuget packages with the right version number.
6. Run nbgv tag release/v1.0 to tag the last commit on the release branch with your current version number, i.e. v1.0.7.
7. Push tags as suggested by nbgv tool: git push origin v1.0.7
8. Go to github project page and create a release out of the last tag v1.0.7.
9. Verify that github workflow for publishing the nuget package has completed.
10. Switch back to master and merge the release branch.