 | |
| Filename extension |
.wsdl |
|---|---|
| Internet media type |
application/wsdl+xml |
| Developed by | World Wide Web Consortium |
| Contained by | XML |
| Standard | 2.0 Recommendation |
The Web Services Description Language (WSDL /ˈwɪz dəl/) is an XML-based interface description language that is used for describing the functionality offered by a web service.[citation needed] 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 similar to that of 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".