DROID (Digital Record Object Identification)
Description[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
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[edit]
- 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[edit]
All development activity is visible on GitHub: http://github.com/digital-preservation/droid/commits
Release Feed[edit]
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[edit]
Below the last 5 commits:
- 2023-07-20 16:26:11
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/ff766825e1b28d38bd76a6be270b4f25ffd8dfc1 About box (#987)]
- by sparkhi https://github.com/sparkhi
- 2023-07-20 15:07:36
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/e2c651526f71a24417def8b4cb89f6b430483b3d suppressed jdk 8 and 17 for macos on CI for the time being (#991)]
- by sparkhi https://github.com/sparkhi
- 2023-06-22 15:46:44
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/e84d2f63c8993d1896bb530a98bbc1007a3956da build(deps): bump maven-release-plugin from 2.5.3 to 3.0.1 (#976)]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
- 2023-06-22 12:51:53
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/d6d279ee8fc8507904bda360eae6b32d58cd2339 Prep for new release - signature files and skeleton suite (#984)]
- by sparkhi https://github.com/sparkhi
- 2023-06-20 10:40:13
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/d7a1b9b0e867a1a5213740e2dc688745317c8562 build(deps): bump maven-assembly-plugin from 3.4.2 to 3.6.0 (#970)]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
About Formats[edit]
DROID do only read the format itself, not the spesification as such