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:
- 2020-05-01 11:04:35
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/4737996/droid-6.5 6.5 Release]
- by jcharlet
- 2020-03-27 17:04:19
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/4737996/droid-6.5-RC3 6.5 Release Candidate 3]
- by jcharlet
- 2020-03-18 11:52:36
- [tag:github.com,2008:Repository/4737996/droid-6.5-RC2 6.5 Release Candidate 2]
- by jcharlet
Activity Feed[edit]
Below the last 5 commits:
- 2021-08-20 08:21:46
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/b8dc52bb5c4bb5a137eefcd04f75f44c7b85720d Bump slf4j-api from 1.7.31 to 1.7.32 (#643)]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
- 2021-08-20 08:21:22
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/51fec4022d1edb80a3787ae729155f9b11178363 Bump commons-compress from 1.20 to 1.21 in /droid-parent (#644)]
- by dependabot https://github.com/dependabot
- 2021-07-14 12:53:17
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/88025712d0d17056f78c8dbde3d0cd9cf10e7a70 Merge pull request #639 from digital-preservation/dependabot/maven/co…]
- by adamretter https://github.com/adamretter
- 2021-07-14 12:53:02
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/2666339779393987cc19d6a5835566cacee604ea Merge pull request #637 from digital-preservation/dependabot/maven/or…]
- by adamretter https://github.com/adamretter
- 2021-07-14 12:52:36
- [tag:github.com,2008:Grit::Commit/42cfa1d91b2676af3879c3b06308a155dfa27e4c Merge pull request #640 from digital-preservation/dependabot/maven/co…]
- by adamretter https://github.com/adamretter
About Formats[edit]
DROID do only read the format itself, not the spesification as such