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 technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

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 us ...

. 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 Microsoft Interface Definition Language (MIDL) is a text-based interface description language from Microsoft, based on the DCE/RPC DCE/RPC, short for "Distributed Computing Environment / Remote Procedure Calls", is the remote procedure call system ...

References

Microsoft application programming interfaces {{prog-lang-stub