Web Services Description Language (WSDL) (WSDL)

A language used to describe the actions that a web service can perform, along with the syntax of action requests and responses. Your SOAP or other toolkit interprets a WSDL file to provide your application access to the actions provided by the web service. For most toolkits, your application calls a service action using routines and classes provided or generated by the toolkit.

WSDL is an XML document for describing Web services. Standardized binding conventions define how to use WSDL in conjunction with SOAP and other messaging substrates. WSDL interfaces can be compiled to generate proxy code that constructs messages and manages communications on behalf of the client application. The proxy automatically maps the XML message structures into native language objects that can be directly manipulated by the application. The proxy frees the developer from having to understand and manipulate XML. See the WSDL 1.1 specification for details.