OData - the Best Way to REST Skip to main content Toggle navigation Blog Developers Getting Started Documentation Libraries Reference Services Icon Usage Tools OData for Visual Studio Code XOData Ecosystem Getting Involved Search Search the OData site. Suggestions appear below as you type; use the up and down arrow keys to review suggestions and Enter to open the selected result. OData - the best way to REST An open protocol to allow the creation and consumption of queryable and interoperable RESTful APIs in a simple and standard way. Recent Posts OData 4.01 Committee Spec Approved By Michael Pizzo Whats New in REST APIs Seminar December 5 2017 By Sumit Sarkar Visual Studio Code Knows OData By Michael Pizzo OData Published as an ISO Standard By Michael Pizzo Previous Next OData (Open Data Protocol) is an ISO/IEC approved, OASIS standard that defines a set of best practices for building and consuming RESTful APIs. OData helps you focus on your business logic while building RESTful APIs without having to worry about the various approaches to define request and response headers, status codes, HTTP methods, URL conventions, media types, payload formats, query options, etc. OData also provides guidance for tracking changes, defining functions/actions for reusable procedures, and sending asynchronous/batch requests. OData RESTful APIs are easy to consume. The OData metadata, a machine-readable description of the data model of the APIs, enables the creation of powerful generic client proxies and tools. Tools Visual Studio Code for OData An extension that adds rich support for the OData query language, including syntax highlighting, and formatting. XOData A generic online API/service visualizer and explorer that assists in rapid prototyping, verification, testing, and documentation of OData APIs. The Chrome App also lets you explore OData services deployed locally or on private networks. Resources Getting Started To get started, take a look at Understanding OData in 6 steps. And then the Basic Tutorial, Advanced Tutorial and Postman Tutorial will provide practical samples to learn OData. Standard OData v4 is standardized by OASIS, including Protocol Specification, URL Conversions, Common Schema Definition Language, JSON Format Specification, ABNF, Standardized Vocabularies, and Aggregation Extension. OData v4 can also be ordered from ISO/IEC as ISO/IEC 20802-1:2016 (OData 4.0 Protocol) and ISO/IEC 20802-2:2016 (OData 4.0 JSON Format) Libraries There are several of libraries to facilitate building and consuming OData service. Restier is the main library for .NET framework. Apache Olingo is for Java platform to build OData service. Sample Services There are several OData sample services to help you practice with OData API. TripPin Service is the main sample service. © 2015-2026 OData – The Protocol for REST APIs