diff --git a/utils/yangutils/src/main/java/org/onosproject/yangutils/datamodel/YangReference.java b/utils/yangutils/src/main/java/org/onosproject/yangutils/datamodel/YangReference.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..98093bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/utils/yangutils/src/main/java/org/onosproject/yangutils/datamodel/YangReference.java
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright 2016 Open Networking Laboratory
+ *
+ * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+ * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+ * You may obtain a copy of the License at
+ *
+ *     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+ *
+ * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+ * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+ * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+ * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+ * limitations under the License.
+ */
+package org.onosproject.yangutils.datamodel;
+
+/**
+ * Abstraction of textual reference for a YANG entity. Abstracted to unify the
+ * parsing and translator processing of reference.
+ */
+public interface YangReference {
+    /**
+     * Get the textual reference.
+     *
+     * @return the reference.
+     */
+    String getReference();
+
+    /**
+     * Set the textual reference.
+     *
+     * @param reference the reference to set.
+     */
+    void setReference(String reference);
+
+}