Create your own API Site in Drupal 6

These instructions are for installing the API Module in a Drupal 6 environment. Please note the API module can parse any documented Drupal code, including contributed modules. This means the code you parse and the code you use to run your site need not necessarily be the same. In fact, it may also be a good idea to keep the code you are parsing outside of the site running the API module. These instructions are made with that assumption.

Step 1: Install and Setup Site

These are the basics steps for getting your site going.

1. Download Drupal 6 at: http://drupal.org/project/drupal
2. Install Drupal. See: http://drupal.org/getting-started/install
3. Download and Install Job Queue module, which is a dependency of API module: http://drupal.org/project/job_queue
4. Download and Install API module: http://drupal.org/project/api
5. Change permissions for API module as needed at: admin/user/permissions

Step 2: Set-up Code "Repositories"

This step involves creating a place to store the code you want to parse. We will go through instructions for a Drupal 6 code base, but this can be applied to any version of Drupal, and contributed modules and themes. This also includes getting the supplemental developer documentation from CVS.

1. Create a place for your code to go:
   mkdir -p /path/to/your/code/repos/
cd /path/to/your/code/repos/
2. Get the most recent version of Drupal 6 code base (see http://drupal.org/node/320 for more information). Note we are naming our directory drupal-6. We could also get any version of Drupal 6 here.
   cvs -z6 -d:pserver:anonymous:anonymous@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal co -r DRUPAL-6 -d drupal-6 drupal
3. Get the extra developer documentation directly from CVS. This is the part of the documentation that brings pieces together and provides different subjects. It also provides the main front page at http://api.drupal.org, different groups and subject, and all the different documentation for the hooks in core, which are pretty useful.

   Go to the Drupal root of our Drupal 6 repo.
   cd /path/to/your/code/repos/drupal-6

   Checkout the developer documentation from CVS. Note that this command gets the Drupal 6 version:
   cvs -z6 -d:pserver:anonymous:anonymous@cvs.drupal.org:/cvs/drupal-contrib checkout -r DRUPAL-6--1 -d developer-docs contributions/docs/developer

Step 3: Set-up API Module and Index Code

This section will tell you how to use the API module interface and how to index the code in the repo we set up above. The term "branch" is used here because of its association of use with the different Drupal branches. In reality, a "branch" is really just sets of code.

1. Go to the site you set up in Step 1, and add a new Branch at: admin/settings/api/branches/new. Fill out the form with the following values:
   

   URL Label

   This is the string that will be used in the URL for the documentation that is created. I suggest: drupal-6

   Page Label

   This is the actual title of the branch of code. It will be used in tabs and blocks. I suggest: Drupal 6

   Directories

   This is a list of absolute paths to the place(s) where your code is. This is where we put in the value from Step 2. /path/to/your/code/repos/drupal-6

   Click Save Branch.

   Re-indexing is done through cron after every branch save. The API module also uses the Job Queue module so that cron will do as much as it can each time. You can either wait for cron to run a few times, or run cron manually a few times at: admin/reports/status/run-cron

2. Go to your new api documentation at: api. The content should resemble the content at http://api.drupal.org.

Step 4: Some Extra Flair

Some extra steps if you want.

1. Enable the API blocks at: admin/build/blocks
2. Index PHP functions at: admin/settings/api/php
3. Use Steps 2 and 3 to create a Branch for Drupal 5.
4. Use Steps 2 and 3 to create a Branch for Drupal 6 Contributed Modules that you use. Or, simply include contributed modules into your Drupal 6 code base that is already being indexed.