RESTful Service Description Language

The RESTful Service Description Language (RSDL) is a machine- and human-readable XML description of HTTP-based web applications (typically REST web services).

The language (defined by Michael Pasternak during his work on oVirt RESTful API) allows documenting the model of the resource(s) provided by a service, the relationships between them, and operations and the parameters that must be supplied for the operations. It specifies if parameters are mandated; and describes possible overloads as parameters sets.

RSDL is intended to simplify the reuse of web services that are based on the HTTP architecture of the web. It is platform- and language-independent and aims to promote reuse of applications beyond the basic use in a web browser by both humans and machines.

Unlike WADL, it concentrates on describing URIs as stand-alone entry points in to the application which can be invoked in different ways, does not require traversing over URI components to figure out URI structure, and supports URI/Headers/body parameters overloads. This makes it human-readable and easily consumed by both humans and machines.

Properties

 * Self descriptive: RSDL represents different URIs as stand-alone entry points into the application. Following resource URIs, one can figure out which methods are available for the given resources and how those resources can be consumed.
 * Machine-readable: Each URI in RSDL contains all the necessary information to generate an HTTP request from it, which can be easily consumed by accessing the URI internals.
 * Human-readable: Each URI in RSDL contains "rel" and "description" attributes describing the meaning of the given operation on that URI. Humans can easily fetch all available operations for a given collection/resource simply by locating different descriptors within the same URI.