Web Services Description Language
XML-based interface description language
The Web Services Description Language (WSDL ) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service. The acronym is also used for any specific WSDL description of a web service (also referred to as a WSDL file), which provides a machine-readable description of how the service can be called, what parameters it expects, and what data structures it returns. Therefore, its purpose is roughly like a type signature in a programming language.
The latest version of WSDL, which became a W3C recommendation in 2007, is WSDL 2.0. The meaning of the acronym has changed from version 1.1 where the "D" stood for "Definition".
Description
The WSDL describes services as collections of network endpoints, or ports. The WSDL specification provides an XML format for documents for this purpose.
The abstract definitions of ports and messages are separated from their concrete use or instance, allowing the reuse of these definitions. A port is defined by associating a network address with a reusable binding, and a collection of ports defines a service. Messages are abstract descriptions of the data being exchanged, and port types are abstract collections of supported operations.
The public source identifies “Web Services Description Language” as xML-based interface description language. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Services, Description and Language.
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This entry incorporates text from “Web Services Description Language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.