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 arbitrary data. It defines a set of rules for encoding documents in a format that is both human-readable and machine-readable. ...

syntax. The DSML version 1 effort was announced on July 12, 1999 by creator Bowstreet (subsequently acquired by IBM in 2005). Initiative supporters include AOL-Netscape,

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, ...

Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...

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 Novell NetWare. Under the l ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...

, and IBM. It resulted in a

Document Type Definition A document type definition (DTD) is a set of ''markup declarations'' that define a ''document type'' for an SGML-family markup language ( GML, SGML, XML, HTML). A DTD defines the valid building blocks of an XML document. It defines the document st ...

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 information services over an Internet Protocol (IP) network. Directory serv ...

data model, similar in spirit to

LDIF The LDAP Data Interchange Format (LDIF) is a standard plain text data interchange format for representing Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory content and update requests. LDIF conveys directory content as a set of records, ...

. The DSML version 2 effort was promulgated in

OASIS In ecology, an oasis (; ) is a fertile area of a desert or semi-desert environment SOAP Soap is a salt of a fatty acid used in a variety of cleansing and lubricating products. In a domestic setting, soaps are surfactants usually used for washing, bathing, and other types of housekeeping. In industrial settings, soaps are used ...

. 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