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Obsolete:

This app no longer works. It uses a version of the API that was decommissioned in May of 2014.

Links and the domain are also long dead.


SOAPI-WATCH

This post was one of the two that were listed regarding SOAPI.

For a full overview of the SOAPI ecosystem see What is SOAPI and why should I care?

At four hour intervals, SOAPI-WATCH parses the complete Stack Overflow API documentation and generates a complete object graph representing the API including all routes, parameters and return formats.

This object graph is then compared, in minute detail, to the last known changed version.

Summary information differences do not trigger a change condition.

If changes are detected, the version just parsed is persisted and marked as latest and a Twitter status update is sent to @SOAPIWATCH with a timestamp and link to the SOAPI-DIFF page, where changes are easily noted.

To be notified of API changes, follow @SOAPIWATCH.

Latest

The latest API specification, according to SOAPI, can be obtained via GET or POST at http://soapi.info/rest/api.

The default format is a human friendly, but complete, text dump that may be used for diff'ing API versions.

Formats available

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  • 1
    How does the "email" part work? I don't use Twitter but I see your title says it can email notifications. I don't see that option on the page or in the question though. I can see that this is going to be a very useful application though, as I've already had one of my apps break because of a change.
    – Mark Henderson
    Commented Jun 11, 2010 at 23:06
  • @farseeker - still working on a compact diff format. When it is complete I will expose a sub/unsub endpoint on the soapi.info/rest endpoint. When the compact diff format is complete I will build both email and rss. Right now I am concentrating on writing examples and docs for the c#/silverlight wrapper. All of this should be wrapped up by the end of the weekend.
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 11, 2010 at 23:17
  • @farseeker - and I actually never saw a use for twitter until now. it is actually a very low friction mechanism for notifications. I am sold on it for that purpose. as far as 'twitting' what i just saw or how i feel... not sure that my initial eval of ridiculous is not still valid. ;-)
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 11, 2010 at 23:20
  • @code, cool - thanks. I don't use twitter on the basis that if you can say it in < 160 characters, it probably doesn't deserve to be said...
    – Mark Henderson
    Commented Jun 11, 2010 at 23:24
  • @code poet - WRT the twitter updates, it'd be nice if you could detect when the only thing that's changed is the first line of the api ;) That would help eliminate most of the "false positive" tweets.
    – Dave DeLong
    Commented Jun 18, 2010 at 16:51
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    @Dave - Yeah, I noticed that last week and have not gotten around to it. will address it later today. thanks for the nudge.
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 18, 2010 at 17:07
  • @dave - removed the revision number from the comparison. unless i broke something else things should quiet down.
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 21, 2010 at 12:16
  • note that with 1.1 changes (/help is deprecated), this method may not work any more.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Feb 15, 2011 at 17:56

2 Answers 2

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5

This is a great idea. I would prefer updates via RSS.

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5
  • 1
    ++ great idea - keep them coming. I am building the www service now.
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 4, 2010 at 22:36
  • What kind of data would you expect to see in an rss feed concerning api changes?
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 6, 2010 at 1:55
  • I like your idea of a diff just listing the items that have been changed. I am not too particular about the format of the diff I just want to know when things are changed.
    – lfoust
    Commented Jun 6, 2010 at 3:47
  • sorry, you are not amongst the 5 users to receive the first real notification from SOAPI-WATCH. ;-) check the diff skysanders.net/soapi/watch/diff
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 6, 2010 at 8:11
  • I am working on a compact diff format right now. will post to soapiwatch when finished
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 11, 2010 at 2:10
2

I wouldn't mind twitter updates. That'd be quite useful.

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    twitter.com/SOAPIWATCH
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 5, 2010 at 8:02
  • congratulations, you are amongst the 5 users to receive the first real notification from SOAPI-WATCH! lol.
    – Sky Sanders
    Commented Jun 6, 2010 at 8:10
  • 1
    @code poet thanks! having these updates has been incredibly useful!
    – Dave DeLong
    Commented Jun 7, 2010 at 16:32

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