Really Simple Discovery
Really Simple Discovery (RSD) is an XML format and a publishing convention for making services exposed by a blog or other software discoverable by client software.
It is a way to reduce the information required to set up editing/blogging software to three well known elements: username, password, and homepage URL. Any other critical settings should either be defined in the RSD file related to the website, or discoverable using the information provided.
History
RSD was authored by Daniel Berlinger in the [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/tech/rsd.html Really Simple Discoverability 1.0] specification.{{Citation needed|date=August 2019}}
Format
To make use of RSD, the owner of a site places a link tag in the head section of the homepage which indicates the location of the RSD file. An example of what MediaWiki uses is:
If this tag is missing or the file is not found, clients should look in the default location, which is a file named rsd.xml in the webroot.{{cite web
| url=http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/tech/rsd.html#ODoxNTozNiBBTQdbdb
| title=RFC: Really Simple Discoverability 1.0
| date=2007-10-16}}
For example, at
Contents
Here is a sample RSD file, from [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/tech/rsd.html "Really Simple Discoverability 1.0"]:
...
MediaWiki example:
Usage of RSD
- StatusNet[http://status.net/wiki/API_discovery API discovery - StatusNet]
- MediaWiki[https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/core/+/master/includes/api/ApiRsd.php MediaWiki source code for ApiRsd.php][https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Main_page#The_endpoint MediaWiki API's documentation about the API entry point]
- WordPress[https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/4.8/wp-includes/general-template.php#L2736-L2745 Wordpress source code for rsd_link]
See also
References
External links
- [http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/blogs/gems/tech/rsd.html Really Simple Discoverability 1.0 by Daniel Berlinger]
- [http://www.truerwords.net/fullThread$msgNum=2594 Forum thread with participation by Berlinger, contains common language explanations]