Web IDL is an
interface description language (IDL) format for describing
APIs (application programming interfaces) that are intended to be implemented in
web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
s. Its adoption was motivated by the desire to improve the interoperability of web programming interfaces by specifying how languages such as ECMAScript should bind these interfaces.
Description
Web IDL is an
IDL variant with:
* A number of features that allow one to more easily describe the behavior of common script objects in a web context.
* A mapping of how interfaces described with Web IDL correspond to language constructs within an
ECMAScript
ECMAScript (; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is stan ...
execution environment.
Web specifications had been specified using OMG IDL since 1998, first with the DOM Level 1 specification.
However, interfaces defined using OMG IDL were not able to specify behavior for JavaScript precisely, leading to issues with interoperability.
WebIDL improved on this status quo by providing data types and binding specifications that make the intended behavior in JavaScript clearer.
Status of Web IDL specifications The first edition of the Web IDL specification
became a Candidate Recommendation on 19 April 2012 and a
W3C Recommendation
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...
on 15 December 2016. For many years th
Editor's Draft of a potential second edition was what most new web specifications referenced. On 5 October 2021, the Editor's Draft was moved to th
WHATWGas th
Web IDL Living Standardper an
Usage
* The W3C Wiki has a list of W3C Specifications that use Web IDL, and nearly all
WHATWG
The Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group (WHATWG) is a community of people interested in evolving HTML and related technologies. The WHATWG was founded by individuals from Apple Inc., the Mozilla Foundation and Opera Software, ...
specifications use it.
* The
Chromium Project has a page about using WebIDL to specify interfaces in
Blink.
* Mozilla uses Web IDL in their software creation process, mapping implementations to Web IDL specs.
* When
WebKit is built, the IDL files are parsed, creates the code to bind interfaces to implementations.
* In the
ES operating system, every system API is defined in Web IDL, and can be invoked from JavaScript directly.
References
External links
List of standards that use Web IDLWeb IDL syntax checker
{{Web interfaces
Specification languages
Web browsers