Salesforce: script to create custom object and fields

Question

Is there a way to create custom objects and fields by using script or IDE ?

Salesforce is very easy to use, however, it's so time-consuming to create so many fields on Web interface. So, just wonder if there's ways to use script or IDE to create objects and fields in Salesforce?

Answer 1

It seems like you're looking for the Metadata API or previously developed tools which utilize the metadata API.

Though using them immediately will require some development, which may take you a lot of time. So, if you get metadata in XML but would still need to prepare it to what you want to accomplish.

So, this somewhat also depends on what you want to do. I, for instance, had a demand today for 150 custom labels based on an input file. It was much quicker to generate metadata XML than to ever do that in the web interface. Deployed the metadata using the force.com IDE.