avdoc 0.4.0

Description:

avdoc 0.4.0

avdoc
CLI tool to generate human-readable HTML documentation for an Apache Avro schema AVSC file.
Want Avro schema docs? 'avdoc!

Installation
Requirements
Software required outside of Python package dependencies:

Graphviz for the reference graph.

Install as Python package
Install the avdoc package on PyPI:
pip install --upgrade avdoc

Usage
[python -m] avdoc tests/example.avsc > out/example.html && open out/example.html

To provide a version ID, e.g. the current git commit:
[python -m] avdoc --schema-version $(git rev-parse --short head) example.avsc > out/example.html

$ avdoc --help
usage: avdoc [-h] [--schema-title SCHEMA_TITLE]
[--schema-version SCHEMA_VERSION]
avsc

CLI tool to generate HTML documentation for an Apache Avro schema

positional arguments:
avsc

options:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--schema-title SCHEMA_TITLE
--schema-version SCHEMA_VERSION

Features

graph/diagram of which record schemas reference each other

reference graph for every complex (record) type


Markdown support in "doc" strings
supports all complex Avro types

record
enum
array
union
error
map
request



Design Goals
The output should:

be well-formatted semantic HTML.
be legible in basic browsers without styling.
aid understanding of the underlying schema.
be a single static file for sharing without dependencies.
be linkable to reference specific schemas and fields.

Development

devenv for development environment
direnv for automatic shell activation (optional)

devenv shell should set up Python & Poetry with dependencies installed.
Use .venv/bin/python as your Python interpreter.
Publishing
Bump version
bumpversion major|minor|patch

Update documentation
Run mdsh.
Publish Python package to PyPI
Configure Poetry credentials with PyPI token and run:
poetry publish --build

Architecture
Not much to speak of.
avdoc is a couple of hundred lines of Python script
generating static HTML, with a bit of string munging to get component outputs
into the final HTML output page.
This code is purpose-oriented.
The output is opinionated, but not much time has been spent on the code
past getting it working for my own needs.
It's not intended to be exemplary of anything in particular.
Maintenance
I probably won't pay too much attention to avdoc maintenance
once it's suitable for my own needs.
I'd like to try to ensure that dependencies are kept up to date.
Fork for your own needs.
Raise a PR if you'd like me to consider including your changes.
Make sure you adhere to the license by ensuring your users
have access to your modifications.
License
AGPL:

[…] requires the operator of a network server to provide the source code of the modified version running there to the users of that server. Therefore, public use of a modified version, on a publicly accessible server, gives the public access to the source code of the modified version.

avdoc is released as copyleft software.
If you modify avdoc then you must make changes available to your users.
If the AGPL license is an issue, and you want to relicense avdoc privately,
then reach out to discuss pricing.
Prior Art
avdoc is intended as a replacement for avrodoc-plus,
which itself was intended as a replacement for avrodoc,
via a long line of forks.
To run avrodoc-plus and see its output:
npm install @mikaello/avrodoc-plus
node_modules/@mikaello/avrodoc-plus/bin/avrodoc-plus.js example.avsc --output out/avrodocplus.html

Why?
Unfortunately the original avrodoc and forks are all
in varying stages of software decay, mostly due to NodeJS ecosystem churn.
Their NPM package dependencies include packages which have themselves
gone unmaintained or had breaking changes in following versions,
with CVEs piling up against the transitive dependencies.
avrodoc-plus has about 10 critical CVEs in its dependency graph.
This isn't necessarily an issue in itself unless you're running these
avrodoc tools in an online capacity or on untrusted input.
But at $WORK it was generating a lot of false-positives in automatic
SBOM security scanners which had to be explained to infosec specialists.
The HTML output from the avrodoc tools is also rather dynamic,
requiring JS to render, when it could just be a classic HTML page.
I have taken the opportunity to implement some quality-of-life
improvements for readers.
See §Design Goals for more info.
Why the name avdoc specifically?
The Apache Software Foundation protects project name trademarks
(quite rightly) and I wanted to avoid the kcat naming issue.
avdoc is "Powered by Apache Avro™" but not a part of Apache Avro™.