Google launches API Discovery Service for developers

Google has launched a new service aimed at developers that it says will make finding APIs easier.

The Google API Discovery Service serves as a central location for public Google APIs by exposing machine readable metadata, which also includes a 'Discovery document' for each API, and inline documentation of methods, paramaters and parameter values. The service itself is accessible via a JSON-based API, Google said in a blog post on Monday.

Developers can use the Discovery Service to build tools to access Google APIs, like IDE plugins and client libraries.

The company said it used the Discovery Service to build several of its own APIs including an Eclipse plug-in that allows you to import Google APIs support directly into an Eclipse project, client libraries and the Google API Explorer — a web-based tool for accessing Google APIs.

Alongside launching the Discovery Service, Google also open-sourced the code for the Explorer API to serve as an example of how the service can be used.

In May 2010, the company redesigned its client API libraries to run atop of an API structure that provided machine readable descriptions, resulting in easier maintenance of the libraries, the company said.