Editing Interface description language (section)

{{Short description|Computer language used to describe a software component's interface}}
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[[File:Component-based-Software-Engineering-example2.png|thumb|right|Representation of different software components for performing a hypothetical holiday reservation in [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]]]]

An '''interface description language''' or '''interface definition language''' ('''IDL''') is a generic term for a language that lets a program or object written in one language communicate with another program written in an unknown language. IDLs are usually used to describe [[data type]]s and interfaces in a [[Language-independent specification|language-independent]] way, for example, between those written in [[C++]] and those written in [[Java (programming language)|Java]].

IDLs are commonly used in [[remote procedure call]] software. In these cases the machines at either end of the ''link'' may be using different [[operating system]]s and computer languages. IDLs offer a bridge between the two different systems.

Software systems based on IDLs include [[Sun Microsystems|Sun's]] [[ONC RPC]], [[The Open Group]]'s [[Distributed Computing Environment]], [[IBM]]'s [[System Object Model]], the [[Object Management Group]]'s [[CORBA]] (which implements OMG IDL, an IDL based on DCE/RPC) and [[Data Distribution Service]], [[Mozilla]]'s [[XPCOM]], [[Microsoft]]'s [[Microsoft RPC]] (which evolved into [[Component Object Model|COM]] and [[Distributed Component Object Model|DCOM]]), [[Facebook]]'s [[Apache Thrift|Thrift]] and [[Web Services Description Language|WSDL]] for Web services.