Re: Finding Metadata for CSV Files

When using MIME it may be feasible to use multipart, include two
separate files and reference one against the other via a custom
header. Obviously this would not address the case of two files sitting
on disk.

Yakov

On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 2:56 PM, David Booth <david@dbooth.org> wrote:
>> On 09/03/14 15:07, Jeni Tennison wrote:
>> > From: Andy Seaborne andy@apache.org Date: 9 March 2014
>> > at 10:33:57:
>> >> 5. (no advocacy) Naming convention : if there is a "data.csv"
>> >> then the metadata is adjacent under "data.csv.json"
>> >> or somesuch.
> [ . . . ]
>
>> > Yes, that would be an alternative, but I don't think we
>> > should include it as an approach in a Recommendation. It
>> > runs counter to the arguments in
>> >
>> > http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-ietf-appsawg-uri-get-off-my-lawn-01
>> >
>> > that caution against a protocol that specifies a particular
>> > URL path.
>>
>> The cat is already out of the bag on that one!
>>
>> http://central.maven.org/maven2/org/json/json/20140107/
>>
>> json-20140107.jar
>>
>> implies
>>
>> json-20140107.jar.md5 etc
>
> Agreed.  And even from a WebArch perspective, I don't think a convention
> like data.csv.json would be bad if it were treated as a *heuristic*. The
> WebArch issue is that you don't want to impinge on the server owner's right
> to associate any URI (that he/she owns) with any resource.   But if
> data.csv.json had to contain an *explicit* statement indicating that it held
> metadata for data.csv, in order for it to be authoritatively considered
> metadata for data.csv, then this WebArch principle would not be violated,
> because the server owner could still use the data.csv.json URI for a
> completely different purpose without harm.
>
> In other words, the rule could be something like: "If you find data.csv, see
> if there's a data.csv.json.   If there is, *and* it explicitly says that it
> is metadata about data.csv, then treat it as such."
>
> Bottom line: I think this is option should be seriously considered (though
> not to the exclusion of others as well!) as a simple, practical way by which
> anyone could associate metadata with their CSV files, without requiring
> changes to the software that generates those CSV files, and without
> requiring any special server configuration.
>
> David
>

Received on Thursday, 13 March 2014 21:01:59 UTC