BAS Metadata Library

Python library for generating metadata records.

Overview

The BAS Metadata Library is an underpinning library for other tools and applications to generate discovery and administrative level metadata records (describing products, services and other resources, and their management).

This library is intended to avoid duplicating complex and verbose encode/decoding logic across projects and ensure interoperability between and within systems.

The library supports a lossless, two-way, conversion between a Configuration Object (a python dict representing the fields/structure of a record for a standard) into its formal representation (typically an XML document)

The library also supports validating record configurations (via JSON Schemas) and formal representations (typically via XML XSDs).

[!NOTE] This project is focused on needs within the British Antarctic Survey. It has been open-sourced in case parts are of interest to others. Some resources, indicated with a '🛡' or '🔒' symbol, can only be accessed by BAS staff or project members respectively. Contact the Project Maintainer to request access.

Supported standards

[!NOTE] From v0.11.0 of this library, the ISO 19115:2003 standard revision is referred to as ISO-19115-0 (iso_19115_0). Prior to this version, it was (incorrectly) referred to as ISO-19115-1 (iso_19115_1).

To avoid confusion, when the ISO 19115-1:2014 standard is implemented, it will be referred to as ISO-19115-3 (iso_19115_3).

Supported profiles

Supported configuration versions

Supported standards coverage

This library is limited to the standards, and subset of elements within these standards, needed for tools and use-cases within the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the NERC Polar Data Centre (UK PDC).

[!TIP] Additions enabling this library to support other use-cases are welcome as contributions, providing they do not add significant complexity or maintenance.

[!NOTE] ISO 19115 extensions (i.e. gmd:metadataExtensionInfo elements) are not supported.

Installation

Installed from PyPi:

$ pip install bas-metadata-library

[!TIP] On Windows, it's recommended to use UV to use a Python version covered by pre-built lxml wheels to avoid building packages from source.

Installation dependencies

This package depends on these OS level libraries for XML encoding and decoding:

• libxml2
• libxslt

This package depends on these OS level binaries for XML validation:

• xmllint

These libraries may already be installed, or require additional OS packages:

Usage

[!TIP] See Usage documentation for further usage examples, including setting and loading administration metadata.

Encode an ISO 19115 metadata record

To generate an ISO 19115 metadata record from a Python record configuration and return it as an XML document:

from datetime import date

from bas_metadata_library.standards.iso_19115_2 import MetadataRecordConfigV4, MetadataRecord

# define a minimalish record configuration
minimalish_config = {
    "$schema": "https://metadata-resources.data.bas.ac.uk/bas-metadata-generator-configuration-schemas/v2/iso-19115-1-v4.json",
    "hierarchy_level": "product",
    "metadata": {
        "contacts": [{"organisation": {"name": "Mapping and Geographic Information Centre, British Antarctic Survey"}, "role": ["pointOfContact"]}],
        "date_stamp": date(2018, 10, 18),
    },
    "identification": {
        "title": {"value": "Test Record"},
        "dates": {"creation": {"date": date(2018, 1, 1), "date_precision": "year"}},
        "abstract": "Test Record for ISO 19115 metadata standard (no profile) with minimal (but not minimal) fields.",
        "character_set": "utf8",
        "language": "eng",
        "extents": [
            {
                "identifier": "bounding",
                "geographic": {
                    "bounding_box": {
                        "west_longitude": -45.61521,
                        "east_longitude": -27.04976,
                        "south_latitude": -68.1511,
                        "north_latitude": -54.30761,
                    }
                },
            },
        ],
    },
}

# encode metadata library specific Python config into a standards compliant XML document
config = MetadataRecordConfigV4(**minimal_config)
record = MetadataRecord(configuration=config)
document = record.generate_xml_document()

# output document
print(document.decode())

[!TIP] See HTML Entities for guidance on using accents and symbols in configurations.

See Date Precision for guidance on using partial (year or year-month) dates.

Decode an ISO 19115 metadata record

from pathlib import Path

from bas_metadata_library.standards.iso_19115_2 import MetadataRecord

# load XML document from a file
with Path(f"record.xml").open() as document_file:
    document = document_file.read()

# decode document into an metadata library specific Python config
record = MetadataRecord(record=document)
configuration = record.make_config()
config = configuration.config

# output config
print(config)

Implementation

See Implementation documentation.

Setup

See Setup documentation.

Development

See Development documentation.

Releases

• latest release 🛡️
• all releases 🛡️
• PyPi

See the Release Workflow for creating a new release.

Project maintainer

Mapping and Geographic Information Centre (MAGIC), British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Project lead: @felnne.

Data protection

A Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) does not apply to this project.

License

Copyright (c) 2019-2026 UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.