OData Library
The OData library is a set of programming interfaces that support advanced serialization and deserialization scenarios in applications and processes where it is not desirable to use WCF Data Services. When you use the OData library, you can create client or server applications that generate and accept OData requests and generate OData responses. When you use this library, you are in control of handling requests (in a server) or generating requests (in a client) and deciding what data to serialize. The OData Library will take care of serializing that data into the desired OData format correctly. ODataLib can also help servers semantically parse a request URI. If your application only requires flexibility in defining your data model but you do not want the added overhead of creating, sending, and consuming individual OData messages, consider implementing Custom Data Service Providers (WCF Data Services) in WCF Data Services.
The OData can be used in both client and server side applications, it provides support for the following:
Serialization and Deserialization
URI Parsing
Content Negotiation
The OData library is implemented in the following namespaces:
The OData library also includes the EDM library, which is used to represent the data model exposed by an OData service. The EDM library is implemented in the following namespaces: