An API dump file is created when a Roblox executable is run using the following options:
RobloxPlayer -API api.txt
RobloxPlayerBeta --API api.txt
These dump the API to a file named api.txt. Note that Studio does not
currently support this command.
Some information in the API dump is taken from the ReflectionMetadata.xml
file. As a consequence, this file must be present in order to generate the
dump.
This repo contains Lua functions for handling the API dump in various ways.
These two functions are used for parsing the contents of the dump into a Lua table, so that it may be manipulated more easily.
The first function, ParseAPI, uses regular expressions for parsing. It is small and fast, but will crash and burn if the contents of the dump are malformed. It is pretty much safe to use on an unmodified dump file taken directly from the Roblox exe.
In comparison, the second function, LexAPI, is larger and slower, but significantly more accurate. If the dump is malformed in any way, this function will tell you the exact location of the error, down to the character. Use this if you're making modifications to the dump file, and need to verify that it is correct.
LexAPI could also be considered a generic implementation, which may be portable into other languages fairly easily.
Both functions expect a string, which is the contents of the dump file. They both return a table containing the parsed data, in the exact same format. Here's an example:
local ParseAPI = require 'ParseAPI'
local f = io.open('api.txt')
local data = f:read('*a')
f:close()
local database = ParseAPI(data)
See the API dump format page for information about the returned table.
This function is used to retrieve Roblox API data directly from the Roblox website.
The FetchAPI function has two optional arguments: The version hash of RobloxPlayer, and the version hash of RobloxStudio. If an argument is omitted, then the latest version will be retrieved from the website and used instead.
The studio must be fetched in order to get the ReflectionMetadata.xml file,
which is required, but not present in the RobloxPlayer build.
Returns three values:
- The unparsed API dump string
- A table of class names and their corresponding explorer image indexes
- The directory where the RobloxPlayer executable that was used to get the data is located
Example:
local FetchAPI = require 'FetchAPI'
local playerVersion = 'version-01a2b3c4d5e6f789'
local studioVersion = 'version-98f7e6d5c4b3a210'
local dump, explorerIndex, dir = FetchAPI(playerVersion, studioVersion)
FetchAPI depends on the following libraries:
See the FetchAPI page for information about how FetchAPI works.
This function is used to get the difference between to API dumps.
The DiffAPI receives two API dumps (returned from ParseAPI or LexAPI) as arguments. It returns a list of differences between the two dumps. Example:
local DiffAPI = require 'DiffAPI'
local oldDump = LexAPI(oldSource)
local newDump = LexAPI(newSource)
local diff = DiffAPI(oldDump, newDump)
See the API diff format page for information about the returned table.