API使用的关键问题研究

API（Application Programming Interface，应用程序编程接口）在现代软件开发过程中被广泛使用.开发人员通过调用API快速构建项目，节省了大量的时间.但由于API数量众多、文档不够完善、维护更新不及时等原因，使开发人员在学习使用API的过程中面临着严峻的挑战.同时，一旦API使用不正确，程序可能会出现缺陷甚至严重的安全问题.本文通过对API相关文献的深入调研，对近些年来国内外学者在该研究领域取得的成果进行了系统总结.首先，介绍了API的基本概念并分析出影响API使用的三个关键问题：API文档质量不高，调用规约不完整以及API调用序列难以确定；接着，从API文档、调用规约和API推荐三个主要方面对研究成果进行全面的分析；最后，对未来研究可能面临的挑战进行了展望.

Study on Key Issues in API Usage

API (Application Programming Interface)is widely used in mordern software development process.The developers save a lot of time when they quickly build the project through invoking API. However, API is often difficult to use for many reasons, such as the large number of API, no perfect document and no timely maintenance and update. Further, API is often used incorrectly resulting in bugs and sometimes significant security problems.This paper summarizes the recent domestic and overseas research results based on the deep survey of the API related literature.Firstly, it introduces the API concept and recognizes the three key issues that affect the API usage:poor API documentation, incomplete invocation specification and undetermined API call sequence. Next, it analyzes the latest advances from these three main aspects:API document, invocation specification and API recommendation.Finally, this paper predicts the challenges of the future research.