Interacting with Metadata¶

Metadata is abstracted via a high-level interface in the Coscine Python SDK such that its users won’t have to deal with the intrinsics of how it is implemented in Coscine (though it is still possible to interact with metadata on a lower level).
The main interface for metadata comes in the form of the abstract data type MetadataForm. The MetadataForm attempts to closely mimic the behavior of the Coscine web interface input mask for metadata. As such, interacting with a MetadataForm feels natural to users that are already accustomed to the Coscine web interface.
To create an instance of a MetadataForm for a given resource, one may use the metadata = resource.metadata_form() method. It creates a MetadataForm and fills it with the default values set in the resource settings.
Users are then able to add, modify or delete values from the form via the following manners:

from datetime import datetime
metadata["Title"] = "My Title Value"
metadata["Created"] = datetime.now().date()
...
print(metadata)

It is important to note, that metadata fields are generally type-sensitive! In most cases the Application Profile for a resource specifies datatypes for each of its metadata fields and the Python SDK uses the python-native forms of these datatypes. If a field requires an Integer, you must supply an Integer - a string won’t suffice. Similarly if a field requires a date, you must supply a datetime.date value - even a “normal” datetime timestamp won’t suffice, as that also includes a time segment.

As of lately Application Profiles can inherit other Application Profiles and incorporate them under a field of their own. The Python SDK supports interacting with those profiles using the following manner:

metadata = resource.metadata_form()
subform = metadata.field("Subprofile Key").metadata_form()
metadata["Normal Key"] = 12345
metadata["Subprofile Key"] = subform
# Subprofile Key contains a whole new MetadataForm as a value
...

To check what kind of value a field takes, several methods are available:

  • Get the field: field = metadata_form.field(key)

  • field.is_controlled: The field is controlled by a vocabulary or selection

  • field.has_selection: The field is controlled by a selection

  • field.has_vocabulary: The field is controlled by a vocabulary

  • field.is_inherited: The field takes a MetadataForm as a value

Fields controlled by a vocabulary

field.vocabulary(key) -> value

The metadata of a file can be fetched as a metadata form with

FileObject.metadata_form()

Datatypes¶

The following datatypes are currently supported by FormFields:

bool | date | datetime | Decimal | int | float | str | time | timedelta

Internally XSD types are mapped to Python types and vice versa via the following relation:

xsd

python

any

str

anyURI

str

anyType

str

byte

int

int

int

integer

int

long

int

unsignedShort

int

unsignedByte

int

negativeInteger

int

nonNegativeInteger

int

nonPositiveInteger

int

positiveInteger

int

short

int

unsignedLong

int

unsignedInt

int

double

float

float

float

decimal

Decimal

boolean

bool

date

date

dateTime

datetime

duration

timedelta

gDay

datetime

gMonth

datetime

gMonthDay

datetime

gYear

datetime

gYearMonth

datetime

time

time

ENTITIES

str

ENTITY

str

ID

str

IDREF

str

IDREFS

str

language

str

Name

str

NCName

str

NMTOKEN

str

NMTOKENS

str

normalizedString

str

QName

str

string

str

token

str