Skip to main content
Version: 0.8

KCL OpenAPI Spec

OpenAPI defines the API Specification for API providers to describe their operations and models in a normative way and provides generating tools to automatically convert to client codes in specific languages.

The KCL OpenAPI Spec describes the rules about how the OpenAPI definitions are translated to the KCL schemas.

The File Structure of the KCL OpenAPI

According to the OpenAPI 3.0 specification, an OpenAPI file should at least contains four root objects: openapi, components, info, paths. The KCL OpenAPI focuses on the part in which the models are defined in the definitions object. Yet the paths part which describes the Restful API operations is not considered by the KCL OpenAPI Spec.

info

Note: In addition to the objects listed above, the OpenAPI spec also supports servers, security, tags, and externalDocs as optional root objects, but none of them are concerned by KCL OpenAPI when generating model codes, so we do not need to fill in this section. Yet it won't make any difference if you do.

To put it more comprehensible for beginners, let's take a quick look at the root objects that forms the typical KCL OpenAPI file (snippets from swagger example Petstore. The KCL OpenAPI tool only focuses on the definitions object which describes two data models (Pet and Category), and the model Pet contains three attributes: name, id, and category)

KCL schema

The KCL schema structure defines the "type" of configuration data.

info

More information about KCL schema, see KCL Language Tour#Schema

In the OpenAPI spec, a KCL schema can be defined by adding a definition element within the definitions object.

Example: The following example defines two schemas in KCL: Pet and Category, followed by the corresponding data models defined in OpenAPI:

# KCL schema
schema Pet:
name: str
id?: int
category?: Category

schema Category:
name?: str

# The corresponding OpenAPI spec
{
"definitions": {
"Pet": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string"
},
"id": {
"type": "integer",
"format": "int64"
},
"category": {
"$ref": "#/definitions/Category"
}
},
"required": [
"name"
]
},
"Category": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string"
}
}
}
},
"swagger": "2.0",
"info": {
"title": "demo",
"version": "v1"
}
}

Schema Name

In KCL, the schema name is declared immediately after the schema keyword, and in OpenAPI, the name of the model is defined by the key of the definition element.

Schema Type

The type of KCL schema in OpenAPI is always "object". As in the previous example, the value of the type object in Pet should be object.

Schema Attribute

Zero or more attributes can be defined in the KCL schema. The declaration of attributes generally includes the following parts:

  • Attribute annotation: Optional, starting with @, such as @deprecated to indicate a deprecated attribute
  • Attribute name: Required
  • Attribute optional modifiers(?): Optional. A question mark indicates that the current attribute is optional and may not be assigned. Conversely, the absence of a question mark indicates a required attribute
  • Attribute type: Required. The attribute can be a primitive data type, a schema type, or a combination of the two preceding types
  • Attribute default value: Optional

The mapping between them and the OpenAPI spec is as follows:

Elements of KCL Schema AttributeCorresponding Elements in OpenAPI
attribute annotationNot supported. We are planning to add an extension deprecate field to the KCL-OpenAPI
attribute nameThe key of the property under the property object
attribute optional modifiers(?)In each element in the definition object, here's an optional required field which lists the all the required attributes of that model, and the attributes not listed are optional
attribute typeThe basic types can be declared by a combination of type and format, and the schema type is declared by a $ref to the schema definition. KCL-OpenAPI spec adds a x-kcl-types extension to indicate a type union. enum indicates a union of several literal types. For the type declaration in KCL-OpenAPI, see the chapter - basic data types
attribute default valueThe value of the default field is used to set the default value for the attribute

Example:

The following KCL code defines a Pet model which contains two attributes: name (string type, required, with no attribute annotation and no default value) and id (int64 type, optional, with no attribute annotation, and the default value is -1).

# the KCL schema Pet defines two attributes: name, id
schema Pet:
name: str
id?: int = -1

# The corresponding OpenAPI spec
{
"definitions": {
"Pet": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string",
},
"id": {
"type": "integer",
"format": "int64",
"default": -1
}
},
"required": [
"name"
],
}
},
"swagger": "2.0",
"info": {
"title": "demo",
"version": "v1"
}
}

Schema Index Signature

In the KCL schema, the index signatures can be used to define attributes with undefined attribute names. The KCL schema index signature contains the following elements:

  • Type of the key in the index signature: Declared in square brackets. It must be the basic type
  • Type of value in the index signature: Declared after the colon in the square brackets. It can be any valid KCL type
  • Ellipses(...) in the index signature: In the square brackets, before the type declaration of the key. It indicates that the index signature is only used to constrain attributes not defined in the schema. The assentation of the symbol indicates that all defined and undefined attributes in the schema are constrained by the index signature.
  • Alias for key in index signature: Declared in square brackets, immediately after the left square bracket and takes the form of <name>:. The alias can then be used to reference the index signature by name
  • The default value of the index signature: Assign a value to the index signature as the default value

The index signature with its key in string type can be described based on the field additionalProperties. Other index signatures with a key in types besides string, and the check expressions used to validate the index signature are not supported by the KCL OpenAPI spec.

The mapping between them and the OpenAPI spec is as follows:

Elements of KCL Index SignatureCorresponding Elements in OpenAPI
Type of the key in the KCL index signatureOnly string type is allowed in OpenAPI
Type of the value in the KCL index signatureDeclared by the type in the additionalProperties field
Ellipses(...) in the index signatureOnly the corresponding meaning of the attendance of the ... symbol is allowed in OpenAPI
Alias for key in index signatureNot supported in KCL-OpenAPI yet. We are planning to add an x-alias extension to support that
Default value of the index signatureNot supported in KCL-OpenAPI

Example:

The following KCL code defines a Pet model which contains two pre-declared attributes(name and id) and allows users to add attributes with string type keys and bool type values.

# the KCL schema Pet. Besides the pre-declared attributes name and id, it allows to add attributes with key in string type and value in bool type
schema Pet:
name: str
id?: int
[...str]: bool

# The corresponding OpenAPI spec
{
"definitions": {
"Pet": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string",
},
"id": {
"type": "integer",
"format": "int64",
}
},
"additionalProperties": {
"type": "bool"
},
"required": [
"name"
],
}
},
"swagger": "2.0",
"info": {
"title": "demo",
"version": "v1"
}
}

Schema Inherit

working in progress

Inline schema

OpenAPI supports models to be declared inline. But KCL currently does not support that. The model defined inline in OpenAPI will be converted to a schema with a name in KCL. And the naming convention will be:

element to define an inline schema in OpenAPIthe name of the corresponding KCL schema
inline Propertyadd the Property name at the end of the outer schema Name
AdditionalPropertiesadd "AdditionalProperties" at the end of the outer schema Name

We are planning to support inline schema in KCL, and when supported, the naming convention will be updated then.

Example-1:

The following KCL code defines a Deployment model which contains two attributes(kind and spec). And the schema of the spec attribute is defined inline.

# The OpenAPI spec
{
"definitions": {
"Deployment": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"kind": {
"type": "string",
},
"spec": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"replicas": {
"type": "integer",
"format": "int64"
}
}
}
},
"required": [
"kind",
"spec"
],
}
},
"swagger": "2.0",
"info": {
"title": "demo",
"version": "v1"
}
}

# The corresponding KCL schemas
schema Deployment:
kind: str
spec: DeploymentSpec

schema DeploymentSpec:
replicas?: int

Example-2:

The following KCL code defines a Person model which contains a pre-declared attribute(name) and allows some additionalProperties to be assigned by user. And the type of the values in the additionalProperties is defined inline.

# The OpenAPI spec
{
"definitions": {
"Person": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string",
},
},
"required": [
"name",
"spec"
],
"additionalProperties": {
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string"
},
"description": {
"type": "string"
}
},
"required": [
"name"
]
},
}
},
"swagger": "2.0",
"info": {
"title": "demo",
"version": "v1"
}
}

# The corresponding KCL schemas
schema Person:
name: str
[...str]: [PersonAdditionalProperties]

schema PersonAdditionalProperties:
name: str
description?: str

KCL Doc

info

More information about KCL doc specification, please refer to the KCL Document Specification

KCL documents consist of module documents and schema documents. And only the schema documents can be extracted from OpenAPI. The KCL schema document contains four parts:

  • Schema Description: Declared right after the schema declaration and before the schema attribute declaration. It provides an overview of schemas
  • Schema Attribute Doc: Declared right after the schema Description and separated by Attributes + --- delimiters. It describes the attribute
  • Additional information about the schema: Declared right after the schema attribute doc and separated by See Also + --- delimiters
  • Example information about the schema: Declared right after the schema additional information and separated by Examples + --- delimiters

The mapping between them and the OpenAPI spec is as follows:

Elements of KCL Schema DocumentCorresponding Elements in OpenAPI
Schema DescriptionThe value of the description field of the data model
Schema Attribute DocThe value of the description field of the property
Additional information about the schemaThe value of the externalDocs field of the data model
Example information about the schemaThe value of the example field of the data model

Example:

The following KCL code defines a Pet model with a schema description The schema Pet definition, and two attributes name and id with their attribute doc The name of the pet and The id of the pet; The additional information about the Pet schema is here and the example to use the Pet schema are provided, too.

# The KCL schema Pet, with doc following the KCL Document Specification
schema Pet:
"""The schema Pet definition

Attributes
----------
name : str, default is Undefined, required
The name of the pet
id : int, default is -1, optional
The age of the pet

See Also
--------
Find more info here. https://petstore.swagger.io/

Examples
--------
pet = Pet {
name = "doggie"
id = 123
}
"""
name: str
id?: int = -1

# The corresponding OpenAPI Spec
{
"definitions": {
"Pet": {
"description": "The schema Pet definition",
"type": "object",
"properties": {
"name": {
"type": "string",
"description": "The name of the pet"
},
"id": {
"type": "integer",
"format": "int64",
"default": -1,
"description": "The age of the pet"
}
},
"required": [
"name"
],
"externalDocs": {
"description": "Find more info here",
"url": "https://petstore.swagger.io/"
},
"example": {
"name": "doggie",
"id": 123
}
}
},
"swagger": "2.0",
"info": {
"title": "demo",
"version": "v1"
}
}

Basic Data Types

JSON Schema typeswagger typeKCL typecomment
booleanbooleanbool
numbernumberfloat
number format doubleunsupported
number format floatfloat
integerintegerint (32)
integer format int64unsupported
integer format int32int (32)
stringstringstr
string format bytestr
string format int-or-stringint | str
string format binarystr
string format dateunsupportedAs defined by full-date - RFC3339
string format date-timeunsupportedAs defined by date-time - RFC3339
string format passwordunsupportedfor swagger: A hint to UIs to obscure input
datetimedatetime

Reference