Metadata Document

The $metadata endpoint returns the CSDL (Common Schema Definition Language) XML document describing the service's data model.

URL

GET /odata/$metadata

Response format

The response is XML with content type application/xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="App.Products" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityType Name="Product">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="id"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="id" Type="Edm.Int64" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
        <Property Name="price" Type="Edm.Decimal"/>
        <NavigationProperty Name="category" Type="App.Products.Category"/>
      </EntityType>
      <EntityContainer Name="DefaultContainer">
        <EntitySet Name="Products" EntityType="App.Products.Product">
          <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="category" Target="Categories"/>
        </EntitySet>
      </EntityContainer>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

What it contains

Element	Description
Schema	Namespace, entity types, complex types, enum types, functions
EntityType	Key, structural properties, navigation properties, annotations
ComplexType	Structural properties (no key)
EnumType	Named constants
Function	Parameters and return type
EntityContainer	Entity sets, singletons, function imports
EntitySet	Name, entity type, navigation property bindings
Singleton	Name, entity type
FunctionImport	Name, function reference
Annotation	Vocabulary annotations on any element

How it is generated

The CsdlSerializer walks the EdmxInterface object graph and emits XML. No template files are involved -- the XML is generated programmatically from the frozen Edm model.

Caching

For production, use php artisan odata:cache to pre-compile the Edm model into PHP classes. This makes metadata generation faster but does not cache the XML itself -- the CSDL serialization runs on each $metadata request.

You can also override cachedMetadataXMLPath() on your service to point to a static XML file.