Directory Services Markup Language (DSML) is a representation of

directory service In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network ...

information in an

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

syntax. The DSML version 1 effort was announced on July 12, 1999 by creator Bowstreet (subsequently acquired by

IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...

in 2005). Initiative supporters include AOL-Netscape,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc., often known as Sun for short, was an American technology company that existed from 1982 to 2010 which developed and sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services. Sun contributed sig ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or thing considered to provide insight, wise counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. If done through occultic means, it is a form of divination. Descript ...

Novell Novell, Inc. () was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as NetWare. Novell technolog ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

, and IBM. It resulted in a Document Type Definition for a file containing the XML representation of entries in the

LDAP The Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP ) is an open, vendor-neutral, industry standard application protocol for accessing and maintaining distributed Directory service, directory information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) networ ...

data model, similar in spirit to LDIF. The DSML version 2 effort was promulgated in

OASIS In ecology, an oasis (; : oases ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment SOAP Soap is a salt (chemistry), salt of a fatty acid (sometimes other carboxylic acids) used for cleaning and lubricating products as well as other applications. In a domestic setting, soaps, specifically "toilet soaps", are surfactants usually u ...

. The Service Provisioning Markup Language (SPML) also from OASIS is based on the concepts of DSMLv2, but does not have such a tight coupling to the LDAP information model. DSML is often pronounced "dismal".

Example of DSML result from requesting an LDAP directory

person organizationalPerson inetOrgPerson top X Mr misterX X Mister misterx@... People

External links

DSML v2.0 Specification

DSML v2.0 Specification errata

DSML v2.0 Schema

DSML V2 FAQ

* * XML-based standards Markup languages Year of introduction missing {{Markup-languages-stub