Intelligent discovery and application of API changes for application migration

A system comprising one or more processors configured to perform a method, the method comprising:

• generating, by the system, an application programming interface (API) difference description file that describes differences between a first API description file of a first version of a web API and a second API description file of a second version of the web API;
• approving a suggested modification included in the difference description file, by an application programmer, wherein the application programmer is not required to review the second API description file prior to applying and generating the difference description file for the first API description file;
• wherein the first or second API description file includes a list of specific uniform resource locators (URLs) and provides a recipe for constructing URLs systematically from parameters;
• and
• updating, by the system, an application program using the API difference description file;
• wherein the API difference description file is a linked list comprising a plurality of nodes;
• wherein each node of the plurality of nodes of the linked list of the API difference description file is a difference node that includes at least four fields;
• wherein the at least four fields of each difference node of the linked list include a type of change field, a location of change field, a content of changed field, and a next change field;
• wherein the next change field of each difference node of the plurality of nodes of the linked list stores a pointer that points to a next difference node of the plurality of nodes of the linked list;
• and
• wherein the next difference node is determined based on an order in which the differences were determined such that the next difference node is a node of the plurality of nodes that has not been pointed to by a preceding node of the plurality of nodes.

A computer program product, the computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith, the program instructions executable by a system comprising one or more processors to cause the system to perform a method, the method comprising:

• generating, by a system, an application programming interface (API) difference description file that describes differences between a first API description file of a first version of a web API and a second API description file of a second version of the web API;
• approving a suggested modification included in the difference description file, by an application programmer, wherein the application programmer is not required to review the second API description file prior to applying and generating the difference description file for the first API description file;
• wherein the first or second API description file includes a list of specific uniform resource locators (URLs) and provides a recipe for constructing URLs systematically from parameters;
• and
• updating, by the system, an application program using the API difference description file;
• wherein the API difference description file is a linked list comprising a plurality of nodes;
• wherein each node of the plurality of nodes of the linked list of the API difference description file is a difference node that includes at least four fields;
• wherein the at least four fields of each difference node of the linked list include a type of change field, a location of change field, a content of changed field, and a next change field;
• wherein the next change field of each difference node of the plurality of nodes of the linked list stores a pointer that points to a next difference node of the plurality of nodes of the linked list;
• and
• wherein the next difference node is determined based on an order in which the differences were determined such that the next difference node is a node of the plurality of nodes that has not been pointed to by a preceding node of the plurality of nodes.