Library

edit

The Meziantou.Framework.PublicApiGenerator package is the library the MSBuild package and the tool are built on. Use it directly to generate the API files from your own code, or to inspect a public API without generating files: list the types and members of an assembly, find a symbol by its documentation ID, compare the builds of several target frameworks, or format declarations for a documentation site.

dotnet package add Meziantou.Framework.PublicApiGenerator

All the types are in the Meziantou.Framework.PublicApiGenerator namespace; the examples of these pages omit the using directive.

The entry point is the static PublicApi class:

Method	Returns
PublicApi.Generate	The API files, in memory.
PublicApi.GenerateToDirectory	Nothing: it writes the API files to a directory.
PublicApi.ReadAssembly	A PublicApiAssembly: the model of the public API of one assembly.
PublicApi.Aggregate	A PublicApiAggregatedAssembly: the models of the builds of an assembly for several target frameworks, combined.

PublicApiFormatter formats the symbols of the model as C# declarations.

Pages of this group

Generating API files: generate the files of one assembly or of a multi-targeted library, in memory or to a directory.
Reading the API model: list the types, members, parameters and attributes of an assembly.
Identifying symbols: documentation IDs, identities and metadata tokens, and how to find a symbol.
Formatting declarations: write a symbol as a C# declaration, with the type references it contains.
Comparing target frameworks: find the symbols that only exist in some target frameworks, and the declarations that differ.