Generating RESTful API documentation from a WCF Service

Question

I've recently started on a project to build out a RESTful API in WCF, and I'm going to need to expose documentation along with the API itself. I was hoping to leverage the XML code comments in my docs for this documentation.

But what I want to output is just the contracts that are exposed by the service: the endpoints and the JSON/XML object structures. Since I'm trying to create external documentation, I'm interested in any of the internals of my library, or how it ties into the .Net Framework (or even that it is .Net, for that matter).

What are my options for tools, to create these docs? I've heard that Sandcastle or Doxygen are good tools for generating docs from XML code comments, but can I filter away the classes and methods that I don't want to expose?

Answer 1

I understand this question was asked pre-.NET 4.0, but as of .NET 4.0, you can create a 'help page' as as described in WCF Web HTTP Service Help Page.

WCF 4.0 Example

[System.ComponentModel.Description("Triggers Method Name Behavior.")]
public void MethodName() {}

Answer 2

Sure, you can filter unwanted APIMembers with Sandcastle. This blogentry describes how. If you are new to Sandcastle, you might want to try out Sandcastle Help File Builder as well, which is basically a Sandcastle Frontend.