First attempt at some API documentation.

- Legacy-Id: 12830

ietf/static/ietf/doc/api.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,96 @@
+=====================
+Datatracker API Notes
+=====================
+
+
+Framework
+=========
+
+The api uses tastypie (https://django-tastypie.readthedocs.org/)
+to generate an API which mirrors the Django ORM (Object Relational Mapping)
+for the database.  Each Django model class maps down to the SQL database
+tables and up to the API.  The Django models classes are defined in the
+models.py files of the datatracker:
+
+  http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/tools/ietfdb/trunk/ietf/doc/models.py
+  http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/tools/ietfdb/trunk/ietf/group/models.py
+  http://svn.tools.ietf.org/svn/tools/ietfdb/trunk/ietf/iesg/models.py
+  ...
+
+The API top endpoint is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/.  The top
+endpoint lists inferior endpoints, and thus permits some autodiscovery,
+but there's really no substitute for looking at the actual ORM model classes.
+Comparing a class in models.py with the equivalent endpoint may give
+some clue (note that in the case of Group, it's a subclass of GroupInfo):
+
+  https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/group/group/
+  https://trac.tools.ietf.org/tools/ietfdb/browser/trunk/ietf/group/models.py#L14
+
+Data is currently provided in JSON and XML format.  Adding new formats is
+fairly easy, if it should be found desriable.
+
+
+Documents
+=========
+
+Documents are listed at https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/ .
+
+In general, individual database objects are represented in the api with a path
+composed of the model collection, the object name, and the object key.  Most
+objects have simple numerical keys, but documents have the document name as
+key.  Take draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay.  Documents have a model 'Document' which
+is described in the 'doc' models.py file.  Assembling the path components
+'doc', 'document' (lowercase!) and 'draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay', we get the
+URL:
+
+  https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay/
+
+If you instead do a search for this document, you will get a machine-readable
+search result, which is composed of some meta-information about the search,
+and a list with one element:
+
+  https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/?name=draft-ietf-eppext-keyrelay
+
+To search for documents based on state, you need to know that documents have
+multiple orthogonal states:
+
+- If a document has an rfc-editor state, you can select for it by asking for
+  documents which match 'states__type__slug__in=draft-rfceditor'::
+
+    $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/?limit=0&name__contains=-v6ops-&states__type__slug__in=draft-rfceditor' | python -m json.tool
+
+- If a document has an iesg state, you can select for it by asking for
+  documents which match ``'states__type__slug__in=draft-iesg'``
+
+- If a document has a WG state, you can select for it by asking for
+  documents which match ``'states__type__slug__in=draft-stream-ietf'``
+
+- States which match ``'states__type__slug__in=draft'`` describe the basic
+  Active/Expired/Dead whatever state of the draft.
+
+You could use this in at least two alternative ways:
+
+You could either fetch and remember the different state groups of interest to you
+with queries like::
+
+  $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/state/?format=json&limit=0&type__slug__in=draft-rfceditor'
+
+  $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/state/?format=json&limit=0&type__slug__in=draft-iesg'
+
+  $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/state/?format=json&limit=0&type__slug__in=draft-stream-ietf'
+
+and then match the listed "resource_uri" of the results to the states listed for each
+document when you ask for:
+
+  $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/?limit=0&name__contains=-v6ops-'
+
+Or alternatively you could do a series of queries asking for matches to the RFC Editor
+state first, then the IESG state, then the Stream state, and exclude earlier hits:
+
+  $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/?limit=0\\
+	&name__contains=-v6ops-&states__type__slug__in=draft-rfceditor' ...
+
+  $ curl 'https://datatracker.ietf.org/api/v1/doc/document/?limit=0\\
+	&name__contains=-v6ops-&states__type__slug__in=draft-iesg' ...
+
+etc.