DROID (Digital Record Object Identification)
Description
DROID (Digital Record Object Identification) is a software tool developed to perform automated batch identification of file formats. DROID is designed to meet the fundamental requirement of any digital repository to be able to identify the precise format of all stored digital objects, and to link that identification to a central registry of technical information about that format and its dependencies.
DROID uses the PRONOM signature files to perform format identification. Like PRONOM, it was developed by the National Archives of the UK. Written in Java, XML.
PRONOM
The format information held in PRONOM is what powers DROID (Digital Record Object Identification). Both are maintained by the UK's National Archives.
DROID downloads the latest signature files from PRONOM, and those are used to drive the identification process. See the PRONOM release notes.
A number of other tools and registries have been based around the PRONOM data. These include:
Although the information and website are made freely available under the Open Government License, the underlying software engine that powers PRONOM is proprietary.
The PRONOM Web API
The website is oriented towards manual browsing, but note that each PRONOM registry entry as a permalink, like this:
http://apps.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/fmt/579
and furthermore, by appending '.xml' to the URL for any entry, the data can be recovered as XML:
http://apps.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pronom/fmt/579.xml
User Experiences
- Tool demo with videos in the DPC Handbook
- Digital Asset Assessment Tool - Assessment of file format testing tools.
- Comparing how Apache Tika and DROID perform HTML identification: How much of the UK's HTML is valid?
- An Analysis Engine for the DROID CSV Export
- KOST-CECO: Used in KOST-Val for the file format identification. For performance and granularity reasons an own SignatureFile is used instead of the official PRONOM registry.
- FITS (File Information Tool Set): Used in FITS
Development Activity
All development activity is visible on GitHub: http://github.com/digital-preservation/droid/commits
Release Feed
Below the last 3 release feeds:
- 2023-09-11 13:43:58
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/4737996/droid-6.7.0 6.7.0 Release]
- by sparkhi
- 2023-08-31 11:34:49
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/4737996/droid-6.7.0-RC5 6.7.0 Release Candidate 5]
- by sparkhi
- 2023-08-17 11:57:20
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/4737996/droid-6.7.0-RC4 6.7.0 Release Candidate 4]
- by sparkhi
Activity Feed
Below the last 5 commits:
- 2024-04-22 15:54:59
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/7e31027f00ddb210e9442b9fe383b2e61ba07028 build(deps): bump org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-jar-plugin (#1097)]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
- 2024-04-19 10:29:59
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/c5127d390390b68b8c91b7ff9ad3be3b43a85fb8 Added tooltip text and removed the text prompt from config dialog (#1…]
- by sparkhi https://github.com/sparkhi
- 2024-04-17 14:12:41
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/8a4318c84c4525757e6ed3b59c91e7860bd673d0 Updated the version number in line with potential release (#1092)]
- by sparkhi https://github.com/sparkhi
- 2024-04-17 07:36:43
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/1fcae3c64cfb5189c1a667d581a7e9bf425b5f4b build(deps): bump com.sun.xml.ws:jaxws-ri from 4.0.1 to 4.0.2 (#1090)]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
- 2024-04-16 07:59:12
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/b9b5b08021cb15e7cf07c3a104b507dcf3e40788 build(deps): bump com.googlecode.maven-download-plugin:download-maven…]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
About Formats
DROID do only read the format itself, not the spesification as such