Swagger / SpringFox Walkthrough

Swagger is an API framework that allows for interactive documentation, client SDK generation and discoverability.  SpringFox is a SpringBoot application that sits on top of your api and allows you to explore it from your web browser.

Useful links

The petstore live demo

• http://petstore.swagger.io/

SpringFox reference Documentation

• http://springfox.github.io/springfox/docs/current/

I used this guide to get myself up to speed. 

• Usage of Swagger 2.0 in Spring Boot Applications to document APIs

My runnable implementation of the SpringFox demo

• https://github.com/LargePixels/lp-springfox-demo

Demo Explaination

Essentially importing Swagger allows you to tag your REST API code with annotations like @ApiOperation and @ApiResponses.  You can then annotate your main method with @EnableSwagger2 and create a bean using the Docket class provided by SpringFox.  When you launch your SpringBoot app, the component scan will find your @RestController, and SpringFox will launch an API browser, using the annotations you added.

• The SpringFox UI used to browse your API
• http://localhost:8080/swagger-ui.html
• Paste /v2/api-docs?groups=greetings in the browse your endpoint
• Raw json describing your API from Swagger
• http://localhost:8080/v2/api-docs?group=greetings
• A list of your rest controllers and their associated documentation links
• http://localhost:8080/swagger-resources
• In this example you can also hit the endpoint manually by visiting
• http://localhost:8080/greeting