vdi2770-validate

Point it at a VDI 2770 container and it tells you, offline, whether the archive is one — and if something is wrong, what to do about it.

VDI 2770 is how manufacturers hand over technical documentation in the process industry: PDFs bundled into ZIP "document containers" with an XML metadata file, those bundled into a "documentation container". Operators in the process industry increasingly ask for it in purchase orders, and a container rejected on intake holds up a delivery. The reference implementation is a Java library and web service; this is a small offline CLI you can drop into a CI job.

Unofficial. Not affiliated with VDI, the Digital Data Chain Consortium, or IDTA. Names are used descriptively.

$ vdi2770-validate check corpus/examples/missingdocuments/folders.zip
  error  F1  A file named in the metadata is not in the container
         at folders.zip!/VDI2770_Main.xml:56:2
         'VDI2770_Main.pdf' is declared but not in the archive
         -> Add the missing file to the container, or remove its DigitalFile entry from the metadata. The two must agree.
  error  Z7  The documentation container has no VDI2770_Main.pdf
         at folders.zip
         -> Add the main document as VDI2770_Main.pdf at the root of the documentation container, next to VDI2770_Main.xml.
  warn   F2  A file in the container is not named in the metadata
         at folders.zip!/456-29201/VDI2770_Metadata.xml
         -> Declare the file as a DigitalFile in the metadata, or remove it from the container. An undeclared file is invisible to the recipient's system.
  warn   F2  A file in the container is not named in the metadata
         at folders.zip!/456-29201/demo.pdf
         -> Declare the file as a DigitalFile in the metadata, or remove it from the container. An undeclared file is invisible to the recipient's system.
  warn   F2  A file in the container is not named in the metadata
         at folders.zip!/456-29201/demo.xlsx
         -> Declare the file as a DigitalFile in the metadata, or remove it from the container. An undeclared file is invisible to the recipient's system.
  warn   F2  A file in the container is not named in the metadata

  … 6 more warnings of the same kind

That is real output on a container that ships with this repository, so the same command works after cloning.

What it will not tell you

Whether a PDF really is PDF/A. That needs a full PDF/A validator such as veraPDF. This tool reports what a file claims, which catches the common failure: files that never claimed at all. It says so on every line where it matters, and the JSON output carries "pdfaVerified": false on every path. The rest of the refusals are in docs/scope.md.

How it is built

• Offline by design. No network at runtime, proven by a test that makes sockets raise. Nothing is extracted to disk; a supplier archive does not get to pick a path on your filesystem or expand an XML entity.
• Rules are data. rules.json — each rule carries where its requirement comes from, a remedy sentence, and — where the reference implementation checks the same thing — the message keys it uses.
• 22 of 32 rules have a minimal fixture pair — a container that violates the rule and a conforming one differing in as little as a single member. The rest are exercised by the vendored corpus. A rule that fires nowhere fails the build.
• Rules cannot reach the parser. A test fails if a rule module imports zipfile or an XML library, so a rule cannot accidentally check how a document was spelled instead of what it says. Rules may name the readers' reserved file names, nothing more.

The classification table, and a disagreement

VDI 2770 defines twelve document classes. Two sources publish that table for free — IDTA 02004 v2.0.1 Table 1, and the MIT reference implementation. Both renderings of every name are stored, so you can check rather than trust: they agree on all twelve German names and disagree on five English ones (02-03, 02-04, 03-01, 03-04, 04-01). So matching here is keyed on the class id and the German name, and an English name never fails a document — it produces a note that shows both renderings.

$ vdi2770-validate classes
02-03  Bauteile    Assemblies   [sources disagree]
      IDTA 02004: 'Assemblies'   reference impl: 'Components'

Details in docs/divergences.md.

Licensing

Apache-2.0. The VDI 2770 guideline text is sold by DIN Media and was not read, quoted, or paraphrased. Every rule names its source in rules.json instead: the schema VDI publishes free, a freely published table, ZIP and XML mechanics, the MIT reference implementation (observed there, not verified against the standard), or a judgement of our own that has to explain itself. See docs/licensing.md and NOTICE.

Contributions take a Signed-off-by line (DCO).

Related

iirds-validate — the same idea for iiRDS. standards-watch — a daily watch on these standards.