Object Description Language (ODL) was the original

interface definition language 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 describe an inter ...

created by

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 ...

for specifying interfaces to be used in

OLE Automation In Microsoft Windows applications programming, OLE Automation (later renamed to simply Automation) is an inter-process communication mechanism created by Microsoft. It is based on a subset of Component Object Model (COM) that was intended for use ...

. It was a superset of the OMG IDL. Microsoft provided a utility mktyplib to compile ODL files. The ODL was merged into the Microsoft Interface Definition Language.

References

Microsoft application programming interfaces {{prog-lang-stub