Validation, conversion, display, and search of tabular data on the web requires additional metadata that describes how the data should be interpreted. This document defines a vocabulary for metadata that annotates tabular data. This can be used to provide metadata at various levels, from groups of tables and how they relate to each other down to individual cells within a table.

The metadata defined in this specification is used to provide annotations on an annotated table or group of tables, as defined in [[!tabular-data-model]]. Annotated tables form the basis for all further processing, such as validating, converting, or displaying the tables.

The CSV on the Web Working Group was chartered to produce a recommendation "Access methods for CSV Metadata" as well as recommendations for "Metadata vocabulary for CSV data" and "Mapping mechanism to transforming CSV into various formats (e.g., RDF, JSON, or XML)". This document aims to primarily satisfy the "Metadata vocabulary for CSV data" recommendation.

Introduction

Interpreting tabular data that is available on the web, particularly as CSV, usually requires additional metadata. As an example, say that the following CSV file were available at http://example.org/tree-ops.csv:

      

A human consumer of this data might be able to figure out the meaning of the different columns, particularly if there were some additional human-readable documentation made available. Automated processors would have a much harder time; realistically they would be limited to displaying the information in a table. Making available machine-readable metadata helps with the interpretation of the tabular data. For example, say that the following metadata file were available at http://example.org/tree-ops.csv-metadata.json:

      

This metadata file may be referenced from a Link header when the CSV file is retrieved, or through looking in known locations for metadata (as described in [[!tabular-data-model]]). It provides information for different types of applications:

Implementations may fulfil one or more of these functions. In particular, Converters may or may not act as a Validator (perhaps through the setting of a flag), and check the data that they are converting to ensure that it is compliant with the schema. If a Converter does not also act as a Validator it may produce invalid output.

[[!tabular-data-model]] defines an annotated tabular data model in which groups of tables, individual tables, columns, rows, and cells can be annotated with annotations. That specification also describes how to locate metadata about a given tabular data file.

This document defines the format and structure of metadata documents, and how these are interpreted to create an Annotated Tabular Data Model. It also defines how to validate tabular data based on some of these annotations.

The metadata format is based on a dialect of [[!JSON-LD]] as defined in . This metadata can therefore be expressed as an RDF graph. It is not necessary for conformant applications to be able to process all JSON-LD, only the dialect defined in this specification. All applications that conform to this specification (including validators and applications that read or convert tabular data) MUST read the JSON-based format described in this document.

Tabular data MUST conform to the description from [[!tabular-data-model]]. In particular note that each row MUST contain the same number of cells (although some of these cells may be empty). Parsers might not be able to map all CSV-encoded data to such a table. As such, the metadata format described in this specification cannot be applied to all CSV files.

This specification makes use of the compact IRI Syntax; please refer to the Compact IRIs from [[!JSON-LD]].

This specification makes use of the following namespaces:

csvw:
http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw#
dc:
http://purl.org/dc/terms/
dcat:
http://www.w3.org/ns/dcat#
foaf:
http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/
rdf:
http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#
schema:
http://schema.org/
xsd:
http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#

Typographical conventions

Annotating Tables

The metadata defined in this specification is used to provide annotations on an annotated table or group of tables, as defined in [[!tabular-data-model]]. Annotated tables form the basis for all further processing, such as validating, converting, or displaying the tables.

All compliant applications MUST create annotated tables based on the algorithm defined here. All compliant applications MUST generate errors and stop processing if a metadata document:

Compliant applications MUST ignore properties (aside from common properties) which are not defined in this specification and MUST generate a warning when they are encoutered.

If a property has a value that is not permitted by this specification, then if a default value is provided for that property, compliant applications MUST generate a warning and use that default value. If no default value is provided for that property, compliant applications MUST generate a warning and behave as if the property had not been specified. Additionally, including:

Metadata documents contain descriptions of groups of tables, tables, columns, rows, and cells, which are used to create annotations on an annotated tabular data model. A description object is a JSON object that describes a component of the annotated tabular data model (a group of tables, a table or a column) and has one or more properties that are mapped into properties on that component. There are two types of description objects:

The description objects contain a number of properties. These are:

For example, in the column description:

{
  "name": "inventory_date",
  "titles": "Inventory Date",
  "dc:description": "The date of the operation that was performed.",
  "datatype": {
    "base": "date",
    "format": "M/d/yyyy"
  }
}
      

the properties name, titles, and dc:description are used to create the name, titles, datatype and dc:description annotations on the column in the data model. The datatype property is an inherited property that also affects the value of each cell in that column (see for more on inherited properties).

Metadata Format

This section defines a set of properties and permitted values for annotating tabular data, and how these properties should be interpreted by applications.

A metadata document is a JSON document which holds an object at the top level. This object is a description object of either a group of tables or a single table. A metadata document may contain other referenced or embedded description objects, description objects for tables and columns. Additional JSON objects, not part of the annotated tabular data model, are used to describe schemas, dialect descriptions, foreign key definitions and transformation definitions.

Metadata Properties
Diagram showing the properties of different metadata descriptors (see the diagram in SVG or PNG formats)

Property Syntax

There are different types of properties on description objects:

Array Properties

Array properties hold an array of one or more objects, which are usually description objects.

For example, the tables property is an array property. A table group description might contain:

"tables": [{
  "url": "https://example.org/countries.csv",
  "tableSchema": "https://example.org/countries.json"
}, {
  "url": "https://example.org/country_slice.csv",
  "tableSchema": "https://example.org/country_slice.json"
}]
          

in which case the tables property has a value that is an array of two table description objects.

Any items within an array that are not valid objects of the type expected are ignored. If the supplied value of an array property is not an array (e.g. if it is an integer), compliant applications MUST issue a warning and proceed as if the property had been supplied with an empty array.

Link Properties

Link properties hold a single reference to another resource by URL. Their value is a string — resolved as a URL against the base URL. If the supplied value of a link property is not a string (e.g. if it is an integer), compliant applications MUST issue a warning and proceed as if the property had been supplied with an empty string.

For example, the url property is a link property. A table description might contain:

"url": "example-2014-01-03.csv"
          

in which case the url property on the table would have a single value, a link to example-2014-01-03.csv, resolved against the base URL of the metadata document in which this was located. For example if the metadata document contained:

"@context": [ "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", { "@base": "http://example.org/" }]
          

this is equivalent to specifying:

"url": "http://example.org/example-2014-01-03.csv"
          

URI Template Properties

URI template properties contain a [[!URI-TEMPLATE]] which can be used to generate a URI. These URI templates are expanded in the context of each row by combining the template with a set of variables with values as defined in [[!URI-TEMPLATE]]. The following variables are set:

column names
a variable is set for each column within the schema; the name of the variable is the column name of the column from the annotated table and the value is derived from the value of the cell in that column in the row that is currently being processed, namely one of:

The languages of cell values are ignored.

_column
_column is set to the column number of the column from the annotated table that is currently being processed.
_sourceColumn
_sourceColumn is set to the source number of the column that is currently being processed; this usually varies from _column by skip columns.
_row
_row is set to the row number of the row from the annotated table that is currently being processed.
_sourceRow
_sourceRow is set to the source number of the row that is currently being processed; this usually varies from _row by skip rows and header rows.
_name
_name is set to the URI decoded column name annotation, as defined in [[!tabular-data-model]], for the column that is currently being processed. (Percent-decoding is necessary as name may have been encoded if taken from titles; this prevents double percent-encoding.)

The annotation value is the result of:

  1. applying the template against the cell in that column in the row that is currently being processed.
  2. expanding any prefixes as if the value were the name of a common property, as described in .
  3. resolving the resulting URL against the base URL of the table url if not null.

If the supplied value of a URI template property is not a string (e.g. if it is an integer), compliant applications MUST issue a warning and proceed as if the property had been supplied with an empty string.

For example, the aboutUrl property holds a URI template that is used to generate a URL identifier for each row, which might look like:

"aboutUrl": "http://example.org/example.csv#row.{_row}"
          

The about URL annotations that are generated and used as identifiers for the rows would then look like http://example.org/example.csv#row.1, http://example.org/example.csv#row.2 and so on.

Alternatively, with the CSV and metadata in the , the aboutUrl might look like:

"aboutUrl": "http://example.org/tree/{on_street}/{GID}"
          

This would generate URIs such as http://example.org/tree/ADDISON%20AV/1 and http://example.org/tree/EMERSON%20ST/2.

If the value of the on_street or GID column were null, the URL would still be generated with the null value generating an empty string in the URL. For example if on_street were null and GID were 3, the generated URL would be http://example.org/tree//3.

Once the URI has been generated, it is resolved against the url of the table (e.g. the CSV file) to create an absolute URI. For example, given a aboutUrl within a schema such as:

"aboutUrl": "#row.{_row}"
          

and given a CSV file at http://example.com/temp.csv, the URL for the first row will be http://example.com/temp.csv#row.1.

The propertyUrl property might be defined as "{#_name}", meaning that it resolves as a fragment identifier relative to the URL of the source of the table. For example, accessing it from a column with the column name GID would look like:

"http://example.org/example.csv#GID"
          

A value defined within the data is also subject to expansion. For example, consider the following table:

project_name,project_type,keywords
CSVW,foaf:Project,table;data;conversion
          

The project_type column might have a valueUrl specified as "{project_type}". In the first row the cell value is "foaf:Project". The foaf prefix is understood, as described in , to expand to http://xmlns.com/foaf/0.1/Project.

Similarly, the keywords column might have a valueUrl specified as "https://duckduckgo.com/?q={keywords}". If the column also specifies "separator": ";", then the cell value of the keywords column would be an array of the three values table, data, and conversion. This is set as the value of the keywords variable within the URI template, which means the result would be https://duckduckgo.com/?q=table,data,conversion.

If the value in the keywords column were an empty sequence (created from an empty cell in the original data), the reference to that column would be expanded to an empty string, generating https://duckduckgo.com/?q=.

When a cell's value is not a string, the canonical representation of that value is used within the expanded URL. For example, the data may include dates such as those in:

          

The Inventory Date column description would indicate that these were dates with the format M/d/yyyy:

{
  "name": "inventory_date",
  "titles": "Inventory Date",
  "datatype": {
    "base": "date",
    "format": "M/d/yyyy"
  }
}
          

The string value of the inventory_date column in the first row is parsed to create the date 18th October 2010. When the inventory_date column is referenced within a URI template such as http://example.org/event/{inventory_date}, the canonical representation of that date, as defined in [[!xmlschema11-2]] is used within the URL, giving the result http://example.org/event/2010-10-18.

Column Reference Properties

Column reference properties hold one or more references to other column description objects. The referenced description object must have a name property. Column reference properties can then reference column description objects through values that are:

  • strings — which MUST match the name on a column description object within the metadata document.
  • arrays — lists of strings as above.

Compliant applications MUST issue a warning and proceed as if the column reference property had not been specified if:

  • the supplied value is not a string or array (e.g. if it is an integer).
  • the supplied value is an empty array.
  • any of the values in the supplied array are not strings.
  • any of the supplied strings do not reference one or more columns.

For example, the primaryKey property is a column reference property on the schema. It has to hold references to columns defined elsewhere in the schema, and the descriptions of those columns must have name properties. It can hold a single reference, like this:

"tableSchema": {
  "columns": [{
    "name": "GID"
  }, ... ],
  "primaryKey": "GID"
}
          

or it can contain an array of references, like this:

"tableSchema": {
  "columns": [{
    "name": "givenName"
  }, {
    "name": "familyName"
  }, ... ],
  "primaryKey": [ "givenName", "familyName" ]
}
          

If the primaryKey property were given an invalid value, such as 1, or a column name were misspelled, the processor MUST issue a warning and ignore the value.

On the other hand, the columnReference property is a required property; if it has an invalid value, such as an empty array, then the processor will issue an error as if the property were not specified at all.

Object Properties

Object properties hold either a single object or a reference to an object by URL. Their values may be:

  • strings — resolved as URLs against the base URL.
  • objects — interpreted as structured objects.

If the supplied value of an object property is not a string or object (e.g. if it is an integer), compliant applications MUST issue a warning and proceed as if the property had been specified as an object with no properties.

Object properties are often used when the values can be or should be values within controlled vocabularies, or structured information which may be held elsewhere. For example, the dialect of a table is an object property. It could be provided as a URL that indicates a commonly used dialect, like this:

"dialect": "http://example.org/tab-separated-values"
          

or a structured object, like this:

"dialect": {
  "delimiter": "\t",
  "encoding": "utf-8"
}
          

When specified as a string, the resolved URL is used to fetch the referenced object during normalization as described in . For example, if http://example.org/tab-separated-values resolved to:

{
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "quoteChar": null,
  "header": true,
  "delimiter": "\t"
}
          

Following normalization, the value of the dialect property would then be:

"dialect": {
  "@id": "http://example.org/tab-separated-values",
  "quoteChar": null,
  "header": true,
  "delimiter": "\t"
}
          

Natural Language Properties

Natural language properties hold natural language strings. Their values may be:

  • strings — interpreted as natural language strings in the default language.
  • arrays — interpreted as alternative natural language strings in the default language.
  • objects whose properties MUST be language codes as defined by [[!BCP47]] and whose values are either strings or arrays, providing natural language strings in that language.

Natural language properties are used for titles. For example, the titles property on a column description provides a natural language label for a column. If it's a plain string like this:

"titles": "Project title"
          

then that string is assumed to be in the default language (or have an undefined language, und, if there is no such property). Multiple alternative values can be given in an array:

"titles": [
  "Project title",
  "Project"
]
          

It's also possible to provide multiple values in different languages, using an object structure. For example:

"titles": {
  "en": "Project title",
  "fr": "Titre du projet"
}
          

and within such an object, the values of the properties can themselves be arrays:

"titles": {
  "en": [ "Project title", "Project" ],
  "fr": "Titre du projet"
}
          

The annotation value of a natural language property is an object whose properties are language codes and where the values of those properties are an array of strings (see Language Maps in [[!JSON-LD]]).

When extracting a annotation value from a metadata that will have already been normalized, a natural language property will already have this form.

If the supplied value of a natural language property is not a string, array or object (e.g. if it is an integer), compliant applications MUST issue a warning and proceed as if the property had been specified as an empty array. If the supplied value is an array, any items in that array that are not strings MUST be ignored. If the supplied value is an object, any properties that are not valid language codes as defined by [[!BCP47]] MUST be ignored, as must any properties whose value is not a string or an array, and any items that are not strings within array values of these properties.

Atomic Properties

Atomic properties hold atomic values. Their values may be:

  • numbers — interpreted as integers or doubles.
  • booleans — interpreted as booleans (true or false).
  • strings — interpreted as defined by the property.
  • objects — interpreted as defined by the property.
  • arrays — lists of numbers, booleans, strings, or objects.

The annotation value of a boolean atomic property is false if unset; otherwise, the annotation value of an atomic property is normalized value of that property, or the defined default value or null, if unset. Processors MUST issue a warning if a property is set to an invalid value type, such as a boolean atomic property being set to the number 1 or a numeric atomic property being set to the string "3.1415", and act as if the property had not been specified (which may mean using the default value for the property, or may mean raising an error and halting processing if the property is a required property).

Top-Level Properties

The top-level object of a metadata document or object referenced through an object property (whether it is a table group description, table description, schema, dialect description or transformation definition) MUST have a @context property. This is an array property, as defined in Section 8.7 of [[!JSON-LD]]. The @context MUST have one of the following values:

Table Groups

A table group description is a JSON object that describes a group of tables.

Required Properties

tables

An array property of table descriptions for the tables in the group, namely those listed in the tables annotation on the group of tables being described. Compliant application MUST raise an error if this array does not contain one or more table descriptions.

Optional Properties

The description of a group of tables MAY also contain:

dialect

An object property that provides a single dialect description. If provided, dialect provides hints to processors about how to parse the referenced files to create tabular data models for the tables in the group. This may be provided as an embedded object or as a URL reference. See for more details.

notes

An array property that provides an array of objects representing arbitrary annotations on the annotated group of tables. The value of this property becomes the value of the notes annotation for the group of tables. The properties on these objects are interpreted equivalently to common properties as described in .

The Web Annotation Working Group is developing a vocabulary for expressing annotations. In future versions of this specification, we anticipate referencing that vocabulary.

tableDirection

An atomic property that MUST have a single string value that is one of "rtl", "ltr", or "auto". Indicates whether the tables in the group should be displayed with the first column on the right, on the left, or based on the first character in the table that has a specific direction. The value of this property becomes the value of the table direction annotation for all the tables in the table group. See Bidirectional Tables in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details. The default value for this property is "auto".

tableSchema

An object property that provides a single schema description as described in , used as the default for all the tables in the group. This may be provided as an embedded object within the JSON metadata or as a URL reference to a separate JSON object that is a schema description.

transformations

An array property of transformation definitions that provide mechanisms to transform the tabular data into other formats. The value of this property becomes the value of the transformations annotation for all the tables in the table group.

@id
If included, @id is a link property that identifies the group of tables, as defined by [[!tabular-data-model]], described by this table group description. It MUST NOT start with _:. The value of this property becomes the value of the id annotation for the group of tables.
@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "TableGroup". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

The description MAY contain any common properties to provide extra metadata about the group of tables as a whole.

The description MAY contain inherited properties to describe cells within the tables.

Table Group Description Compatibility

Two table group descriptions are compatible if any table descriptions they contain with matching normalized url properties are themselves compatible as defined in .

Tables

A table description is a JSON object that describes a table within a CSV file.

Required Properties

url

This link property gives the single URL of the CSV file that the table is held in, relative to the location of the metadata document. The value of this property is the value of the url annotation for the annotated table this table description describes.

Optional Properties

The description of a table MAY also contain:

dialect

As defined for table groups.

notes

An array property that provides an array of objects representing arbitrary annotations on the annotated tabular data model. The value of this property becomes the value of the notes annotation for the table. The properties on these objects are interpreted equivalently to common properties as described in .

The Web Annotation Working Group is developing a vocabulary for expressing annotations. In future versions of this specification, we anticipate referencing that vocabulary.

suppressOutput

A boolean atomic property. If true, suppresses any output that would be generated when converting this table. The value of this property becomes the value of the suppress output annotation for this table. The default is false.

tableDirection

As defined for table groups. The value of this property becomes the value of the table direction annotation for this table.

tableSchema

An object property that provides a single schema description as described in . This may be provided as an embedded object within the JSON metadata or as a URL reference to a separate JSON schema document. If a table description is within a table group description, the tableSchema from that table group acts as the default for this property.

If a tableSchema is not declared in table description, it may be declared on the table group description, which is then used as the schema for this table description.

The @id property of the tableSchema, if there is one, becomes the value of the schema annotation for this table.

When a schema is referenced by URL, this URL becomes the value of the @id property in the normalized schema description, and thus the value of the schema annotation on the table.

transformations

As defined for table groups. The value of this property becomes the value of the transformations annotation for this table.

@id

If included, @id is a link property that identifies the table, as defined in [[!tabular-data-model]], described by this table description. It MUST NOT start with _:. The value of this property becomes the value of the id annotation for this table.

@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "Table". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

The description MAY contain any common properties to provide extra metadata about the table as a whole.

The description MAY contain inherited properties to describe cells within the table.

Table Description Compatibility

Two table descriptions are compatible if they have equivalent normalized url properties, and have compatible schemas as defined in .

Schemas

A schema is a definition of a tabular format that may be common to multiple tables. For example, multiple tables from different sources may have the same columns and be designed such that they can be aggregated together.

A schema description is a JSON object that encodes the information about a schema, which describes the structure of a table. All the properties of a schema description are optional.

columns

An array property of column descriptions as described in . These are matched to columns in tables that use the schema by position: the first column description in the array applies to the first column in the table, the second to the second and so on.

The name properties of the column descriptions MUST be unique within a given table description.

foreignKeys

An array property of foreign key definitions that define how the values from specified columns within this table link to rows within this table or other tables. A foreign key definition is a JSON object that MUST contain only the following properties:

columnReference

A column reference property that holds either a single reference to a column description object within this schema, or an array of references. These form the referencing columns for the foreign key definition.

reference

An object property that identifies a referenced table and a set of referenced columns within that table. Its properties are:

resource

A link property holding a URL that is the identifier for a specific table that is being referenced. If this property is present then schemaReference MUST NOT be present. The table group MUST contain a table whose url annotation is identical to the expanded value of this property. That table is the referenced table.

schemaReference

A link property holding a URL that is the identifier for a schema that is being referenced. If this property is present then resource MUST NOT be present. The table group MUST contain a table with a tableSchema having a @id that is identical to the expanded value of this property, and there MUST NOT be more than one such table. That table is the referenced table.

columnReference

A column reference property that holds either a single reference (by name) to a column description object within the tableSchema of the referenced table, or an array of such references.

The value of this property becomes the foreign keys annotation on the table using this schema by creating a list of foreign keys comprising a list of columns in the table and a list of columns in the referenced table. The value of this property is also used to create the value of the referenced rows annotation on each of the rows in the table that uses this schema, which is a pair of the relevant foreign key and the referenced row in the referenced table.

As defined in [[!tabular-data-model]], validators MUST check that, for each row, the combination of cells in the referencing columns references a unique row within the referenced table through a combination of cells in the referenced columns. For examples, see and .

It is not required for the table or schema referenced from a foreignKeys property to have a similarly defined primaryKey, though frequently it will.

primaryKey

A column reference property that holds either a single reference to a column description object or an array of references. The value of this property becomes the primary key annotation for each row within a table that uses this schema by creating a list of the cells in that row that are in the referenced columns.

As defined in [[!tabular-data-model]], validators MUST check that each row has a unique combination of values of cells in the indicated columns. For example, if primaryKey is set to ["familyName", "givenName"] then every row must have a unique value for the combination of values of cells in the familyName and givenName columns.

rowTitles

A column reference property that holds either a single reference to a column description object or an array of references. The value of this property determines the titles annotation for each row within a table that uses this schema. The titles annotation holds the list of the values of the cells in that row that are in the referenced columns; if the value is not a string or has no associated language, it is interpreted as a string with an undefined language (und).

@id

If included, @id is a link property that identifies the schema described by this schema description. It MUST NOT start with _:.

@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "Schema". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

The description MAY contain any common properties to provide extra metadata about the schema as a whole.

The description MAY contain inherited properties to describe cells within tables that use this schema.

Schema Compatibility

Two schemas are compatible if they have the same number of non-virtual column descriptions, and the non-virtual column descriptions at the same index within each are compatible with each other. Column descriptions are compatible under the following conditions:

  • If either column description has neither name nor titles properties.
  • If there is a case-sensitive match between the name properties of the columns.
  • If there is a non-empty case-sensitive intersection between the titles values, where matches must have a matching language; und matches any language, and languages match if they are equal when truncated, as defined in [[!BCP47]], to the length of the shortest language tag.
  • If not validating, and one schema has a name property but not a titles property, and the other has a titles property but not a name property.

A column description within embedded metadata where the header dialect property is false will have neither name nor titles properties.

Examples

Foreign Key Reference Between Tables

A list of countries is published at http://example.org/countries.csv with the structure:

            

Another file contains information about the population in some countries each year, at http://example.com/country_slice.csv with the structure:

            

The following metadata for the group of tables links the two together by defining a foreignKeys property:

            

Within the annotated table generated for countries.csv, each row will have a primary key annotation whose value is a list containing the cell from the first column of that row (countryCode).

The annotated table generated for country_slice.csv will have a foreign keys annotation whose value is a list containing a single foreign key referencing the first column from the table generated from country_slice.csv (countryRef) and the first column from the table generated from countries.csv (countryCode). Each row within that table will have a referenced row annotation referencing this foreign key and the third row in the table generated from countries.csv.

When the population data in country_slice.csv is validated, the validator must check that every countryRef within country_slice.csv has a matching countryCode within countries.csv.

Foreign Key Reference Between Schemas

When publishing information about public sector roles and salaries, as in Use Case 4, the UK government requires departments to publish two files which are interlinked. The first lists senior grades (simplified here) e.g., at HEFCE_organogram_senior_data_31032011.csv:

Post Unique Reference,              Name,Grade,             Job Title,Reports to Senior Post
                90115,        Steve Egan,SCS1A,Deputy Chief Executive,                 90334
                90250,     David Sweeney,SCS1A,              Director,                 90334
                90284,       Heather Fry,SCS1A,              Director,                 90334
                90334,Sir Alan Langlands, SCS4,       Chief Executive,                    xx
            

The second provides information about the number of junior positions that report to those individuals (simplified here) e.g., at HEFCE_organogram_junior_data_31032011.csv:

Reporting Senior Post,Grade,Payscale Minimum (£),Payscale Maximum (£),Generic Job Title,Number of Posts in FTE,          Profession
                90284,    4,               17426,               20002,    Administrator,                     2,Operational Delivery
                90284,    5,               19546,               22478,    Administrator,                     1,Operational Delivery
                90115,    4,               17426,               20002,    Administrator,                  8.67,Operational Delivery
                90115,    5,               19546,               22478,    Administrator,                   0.5,Operational Delivery
            

The schemas are reused by multiple departments and for multiple pairs of files. The schemas are therefore defined in separate files, and they need to define links between the schemas which are then picked up as applying between tables that use those schemas.

The metadata file for the particular publication of the files above is:

{
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "tables": [{
    "url": "HEFCE_organogram_senior_data_31032011.csv",
    "tableSchema": "http://example.org/schema/senior-roles.json"
  }, {
    "url": "HEFCE_organogram_junior_data_31032011.csv",
    "tableSchema": "http://example.org/schema/junior-roles.json"
  }]
}
            

The schema for the senior role CSV (at http://example.org/schema/senior-roles.json) is as follows:

{
  "@id": "http://example.org/schema/senior-roles.json",
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "columns": [{
    "name": "ref",
    "titles": "Post Unique Reference"
  }, {
    "name": "name",
    "titles": "Name"
  }, {
    "name": "grade",
    "titles": "Grade"
  }, {
    "name": "job",
    "titles": "Job Title"
  }, {
    "name": "reportsTo",
    "titles": "Reports to Senior Post"
  }],
  "primaryKey": "ref"
}
            

The schema for the junior role CSV (at http://example.org/schema/junior-roles.json) is as follows; it includes a foreign key reference to the senior roles schema:

{
  "@id": "http://example.org/schema/junior-roles.json",
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "columns": [{
    "name": "reportsTo",
    "titles": "Reporting Senior Post"
  },
  ...
  ],
  "foreignKeys": [{
    "columnReference": "reportsTo",
    "reference": {
      "schemaReference": "http://example.org/schema/senior-roles.json",
      "columnReference": "ref"
    }
  }]
}
            

The foreign key definition here contains a schemaReference to senior-roles.json. Implementations will look for the table referenced within the original metadata file whose tableSchema is senior-roles.json, which is HEFCE_organogram_senior_data_31032011.csv. The implementation will therefore look for a relationship between the reportsTo column in HEFCE_organogram_junior_data_31032011.csv and the ref column in HEFCE_organogram_senior_data_31032011.csv.

For example, in the first line of HEFCE_organogram_junior_data_31032011.csv, the reportsTo (Reporting Senior Post) column contains the value 90284. When validating that file, validators will check that there is a single row within the table generated from HEFCE_organogram_senior_data_31032011.csv whose ref column contains the value 90284.

Weak Linking between Tables

Foreign key definitions provide for strong linking between tables that guarantees (through validation) the existance of a referenced row. It is also possible to provide weak linking between tables that are not tested by validations, but which may be useful when converting tabular data into other formats, using aboutUrl and valueUrl.

Taking the example above as a starting point, the schema for HEFCE_organogram_senior_data_31032011.csv could use aboutUrl to provide a URL for each row, which can similarly be created as a valueUrl for the reportsTo column:

{
  "@id": "http://example.org/schema/senior-roles.json",
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "aboutUrl": "#role-{ref}",
  "columns": [{
    "name": "ref",
    "titles": "Post Unique Reference"
  }, {
    "name": "name",
    "titles": "Name"
  }, {
    "name": "grade",
    "titles": "Grade"
  }, {
    "name": "job",
    "titles": "Job Title"
  }, {
    "name": "reportsTo",
    "titles": "Reports to Senior Post",
    "valueUrl": "#role-{reportsTo}"
  }],
  "primaryKey": "ref"
}
            

The URLs generated for the values of the reportsTo will (if the data is correct) match the URLs generated for each row within the table. There will be no validation error, however, if there is a value in the reportsTo column that does not match a value in the ref column. In contrast, if a foreign key had been specified with:

"foreignKeys": [{
  "columnReference": "reportsTo",
  "reference": {
    "schemaReference": "http://example.org/schema/senior-roles.json",
    "columnReference": "ref"
  }
}]
            

then validators would raise an error if a value in the reportsTo column did not match any value in the ref column.

Columns

A column description is a JSON object that describes a single column. The description provides additional human-readable documentation for a column, as well as additional information that may be used to validate the cells within the column, create a user interface for data entry, or inform conversion into other formats. All properties are optional.

name

An atomic property that gives a single canonical name for the column. The value of this property becomes the name annotation for the described column. This MUST be a string and this property has no default value, which means it MUST be ignored if the supplied value is not a string.

For ease of reference within URI template properties, column names are restricted as defined in Variables in [[!URI-TEMPLATE]] with the additional provision that names beginning with "_" are reserved by this specification and MUST NOT be used within metadata documents.

suppressOutput

A boolean atomic property. If true, suppresses any output that would be generated when converting cells in this column. The value of this property becomes the suppress output annotation for the described column. The default is false.

titles

A natural language property that provides possible alternative names for the column. The string values of this property, along with their associated language tags, become the titles annotation for the described column.

If there is no name property defined on this column, the first titles value having the same language tag as default language, or und or if no default language is specified, becomes the name annotation for the described column. This annotation MUST be percent-encoded as necessary to conform to the syntactic requirements defined in [[!RFC3986]].

virtual

A boolean atomic property taking a single value which indicates whether the column is a virtual column not present in the original source. The default value is false. The normalized value of this property becomes the virtual annotation for the described column. If present, a virtual column MUST appear after all other non-virtual column definitions.

Virtual columns are useful for inserting cells with default values into an annotated table to control the results of conversions.

@id

If included, @id is a link property that identifies the columns, as defined in [[!tabular-data-model]], and potentially appearing across separate tables, described by this column description. It MUST NOT start with _:.

@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "Column". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

If the column description has neither name nor titles properties, the string "_col.[N]" where [N] is the column number, becomes the name annotation for the described column.

The description MAY contain any common properties to provide extra metadata about the column as a whole, such as a full description.

The description MAY contain inherited properties to describe cells within the column.

Examples

Use of virtual columns

Virtual columns are useful when data needs to be added as part of an output transformation that doesn't exist in the source file. This may be to add type information to a column, or to relate different columns having different aboutUrl. For example, the http://example.org/tree-ops.csv example used in the introduction can be used with the following metadata:

            

This metadata creates a relationship model between data in each column by different combinations of aboutUrl, propertyUrl, and valueUrl on existing columns, and defining new virtual columns to supply additional information. In this case, the on_street and inventory_date values are split into separate entities, each having their own aboutUrl. New virtual columns are defined to provide a location type, and to relate the main row entity to the event and location associated with it. The result of converting the table to RDF would include the following, for the first row, with the contributions from the virtual columns highlighted:

<#gid-1>
  schema:url <#gid-1> ;
  schema:name "Celtis australis" ;
  :trim_cycle "Large Tree Routine Prune" ;
  schema:event <#event-2010-10-18> ;
  schema:location <#location-1> ;
  .

<#event-1> a schema:Event ;
  schema:startDate "2010-10-18"^^xsd:date ;
  .

<#location-1> a schema:PostalAddress ;
  schema:streetAddress "ADDISON AV" ;
  .
            

The JSON would similarly include, again with the contributions from the virtual columns highlighted:

{
  "@id": "#gid-1",
  "schema:url": "#gid-1",
  "schema:name": "Celtis australis",
  "trim_cycle": "Large Tree Routine Prune",
  "schema:event": {
    "@id": "#event-1",
    "@type": "schema:Event",
    "schema:startDate": "2010-10-18"
  },
  "schema:location": {
    "@id": "#location-1",
    "@type": "schema:PostalAddress",
    "schema:streetAddress": "ADDISON AV"
  }
}
            

Inherited Properties

Columns and cells may be assigned annotations based on properties on the description objects for groups of tables, tables, schemas, or columns. These properties are known as inherited properties and are listed below.

If an inherited property is not defined on a column description, it defaults to the first value, if any, found by looking through all of its containing objects: an inherited property defined in its containing schema description takes precedence over one defined in its containing table description, which in turn takes precedence of one defined in its containing table group description. This value is used to determine the value of the relevant annotation on the described column, which is then used to determine the value of the relevant annotation on the cells in that column.

aboutUrl

A URI template property that MAY be used to indicate what a cell contains information about. The value of this property becomes the about URL annotation for the described column and is used to create the value of the about URL annotation for the cells within that column as described in .

aboutUrl is typically defined on a schema description or table description to indicate what each row is about. If defined on individual column descriptions, care must be taken to ensure that transformed cell values maintain a semantic relationship.

datatype

An atomic property that contains either a single string that is the main datatype of the values of the cell or a datatype description object. If the value of this property is a string, it MUST be the name of one of the built-in datatypes defined in and this value is normalized to an object whose base property is the original string value. If it is an object then it describes a more specialized datatype. If a cell contains a sequence (i.e. the separator property is specified and not null) then this property specifies the datatype of each value within that sequence. See and Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]] for more details.

The normalized value of this property becomes the datatype annotation for the described column.

default

An atomic property holding a single string that is used to create a default value for the cell in cases where the original string value is an empty string. See Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]] for more details. If not specified, the default for the default property is the empty string, "". The value of this property becomes the default annotation for the described column.

lang

An atomic property giving a single string language code as defined by [[!BCP47]]. Indicates the language of the value within the cell. See Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]] for more details. The value of this property becomes the lang annotation for the described column. The default is und.

null

An atomic property giving the string or strings used for null values within the data. If the string value of the cell is equal to any one of these values, the cell value is null. See Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]] for more details. If not specified, the default for the null property is the empty string "". The value of this property becomes the null annotation for the described column.

ordered

A boolean atomic property taking a single value which indicates whether a list that is the value of the cell is ordered (if true) or unordered (if false). The default is false. This property is irrelevant if the separator is null or undefined, but this is not an error. The value of this property becomes the ordered annotation for the described column, and the ordered annotation for the cells within that column.

propertyUrl

A URI template property that MAY be used to create a URI for a property if the table is mapped to another format. The value of this property becomes the property URL annotation for the described column and is used to create the value of the property URL annotation for the cells within that column as described in .

propertyUrl is typically defined on a column description. If defined on a schema description, table description or table group description, care must be taken to ensure that transformed cell values maintain an appropriate semantic relationship, for example by including the name of the column in the generated URL by using _name in the template.

required

A boolean atomic property taking a single value which indicates whether the cell value can be null. See Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]] for more details. The default is false, which means cells can have null values. The value of this property becomes the required annotation for the described column.

separator

An atomic property that MUST have a single string value that is the string used to separate items in the string value of the cell. If null (the default) or unspecified, the cell does not contain a list. Otherwise, application MUST split the string value of the cell on the specified separator and parse each of the resulting strings separately. The cell's value will then be a list. See Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]] for more details. The value of this property becomes the separator annotation for the described column.

textDirection

An atomic property that MUST have a single string value that is one of "ltr", "rtl", "auto" or "inherit" (the default). Indicates whether the text within cells should be displayed as left-to-right text (ltr), as right-to-left text (rtl), according to the content of the cell (auto) or in the direction inherited from the table direction annotation of the table. The value of this property determines the text direction annotation for the column, and the text direction annotation for the cells within that column: if the value is inherit then the value of the text direction annotation is the value of the table direction annotation on the table, otherwise it is the value of this property. See Bidirectional Tables in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

valueUrl

A URI template property that is used to map the values of cells into URLs. The value of this property becomes the value URL annotation for the described column and is used to create the value of the value URL annotation for the cells within that column as described in .

This allows processors to build URLs from cell values, for example to reference RDF resources, as defined in [[rdf-concepts]]. For example, if the value URL were "{#reference}", each cell value of a column named reference would be used to create a URI such as http://example.com/#1234, if 1234 were a cell value of that column.

valueUrl is typically defined on a column description. If defined on a schema description, table description or table group description, care must be taken to ensure that transformed cell values maintain an appropriate semantic relationship.

Examples

In the following example, aboutUrl property is defined on the tableSchema, and therefore affects all cells for that table.

{
  "@context": ["http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", {"@language": "en"}],
  "url": "tree-ops.csv",
  "dc:title": "Tree Operations",
  "dcat:keyword": ["tree", "street", "maintenance"],
  "dc:publisher": {
    "schema:name": "Example Municipality",
    "schema:url": {"@id": "http://example.org"}
  },
  "dc:license": {"@id": "http://opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by/"},
  "dc:modified": {"@value": "2010-12-31", "@type": "xsd:date"},
  "tableSchema": {
    "columns": [{
      "name": "GID",
      "titles": ["GID", "Generic Identifier"],
      "dc:description": "An identifier for the operation on a tree.",
      "datatype": "string",
      "required": true
    }, {
      "name": "on_street",
      "titles": "On Street",
      "dc:description": "The street that the tree is on.",
      "datatype": "string"
    }, {
      "name": "species",
      "titles": "Species",
      "dc:description": "The species of the tree.",
      "datatype": "string"
    }, {
      "name": "trim_cycle",
      "titles": "Trim Cycle",
      "dc:description": "The operation performed on the tree.",
      "datatype": "string"
    }, {
      "name": "inventory_date",
      "titles": "Inventory Date",
      "dc:description": "The date of the operation that was performed.",
      "datatype": {"base": "date", "format": "M/d/yyyy"}
    }],
    "primaryKey": "GID",
    "aboutUrl": "#gid-{GID}"
  }
}
          

The equivalent effect could be achieved by using the aboutUrl property on each column:

{
  "@context": ["http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", {"@language": "en"}],
  "url": "tree-ops.csv",
  "dc:title": "Tree Operations",
  "dcat:keyword": ["tree", "street", "maintenance"],
  "dc:publisher": {
    "schema:name": "Example Municipality",
    "schema:url": {"@id": "http://example.org"}
  },
  "dc:license": {"@id": "http://opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by/"},
  "dc:modified": {"@value": "2010-12-31", "@type": "xsd:date"},
  "tableSchema": {
    "columns": [{
      "name": "GID",
      "titles": ["GID", "Generic Identifier"],
      "aboutUrl": "#gid-{GID}",
      "dc:description": "An identifier for the operation on a tree.",
      "datatype": "string",
      "required": true
    }, {
      "name": "on_street",
      "titles": "On Street",
      "aboutUrl": "#gid-{GID}",
      "dc:description": "The street that the tree is on.",
      "datatype": "string"
    }, {
      "name": "species",
      "titles": "Species",
      "aboutUrl": "#gid-{GID}",
      "dc:description": "The species of the tree.",
      "datatype": "string"
    }, {
      "name": "trim_cycle",
      "titles": "Trim Cycle",
      "aboutUrl": "#gid-{GID}",
      "dc:description": "The operation performed on the tree.",
      "datatype": "string"
    }, {
      "name": "inventory_date",
      "titles": "Inventory Date",
      "aboutUrl": "#gid-{GID}",
      "dc:description": "The date of the operation that was performed.",
      "datatype": {"base": "date", "format": "M/d/yyyy"}
    }],
    "primaryKey": "GID"
  }
}
          

Common Properties

Descriptions of groups of tables, tables, schemas and columns MAY contain any common properties whose names are either absolute URLs or prefixed names. For example, a table description may contain dc:description, dcat:keyword, or schema:copyrightHolder properties to provide a description, keywords, or the name of the copyright holder, as defined in Dublin Core Terms, DCAT, or schema.org.

Names of Common Properties

The names of common properties are prefixed names, in the syntax prefix:name.

Prefixed names can be expanded to provide a URI, by replacing the prefix and following colon with the URI that the prefix is associated with. Expansion is intended to be entirely consistent with Section 6.3 IRI Expansion in [[!JSON-LD-API]] and implementations MAY use a JSON-LD processor for performing prefixed name and IRI expansion.

The prefixes that are recognized are those defined for [[rdfa-core]] within the RDFa 1.1 Initial Context and other prefixes defined within [[csvw-context]] and these MUST NOT be overridden. These prefixes are periodically extended; refer to [[csvw-context]] for details. Properties from other vocabularies MUST be named using absolute URLs.

Forbidding the declaration of new prefixes ensures consistent processing between JSON-LD-aware and non-JSON-LD-aware processors.

This specification does not define how common properties are interpreted by implementations. Implementations SHOULD treat the prefixed names for common properties and the URLs that they expand into in the same way. For example, if an implementation recognises and displays the value of the dc:description property, it should also recognise and display the value of the http://purl.org/dc/terms/description property in the same way.

Values of Common Properties

Common properties can take any JSON value, so long as any objects within the value (for example as items of an array or values of properties on other objects) adhere to the following restrictions, which are designed to ensure compatibility between JSON-LD-aware and non-JSON-LD-aware processors:

  • If a @value property is used on an object, that object MUST NOT have any other properties aside from either @type or @language, and MUST NOT have both @type and @language as properties. The value of the @value property MUST be a string, number, or boolean value.

    If @type is also used, its value MUST be one of:

    • a built-in datatype, as defined in .
    • a prefixed name using any of the pre-defined prefixes as described in .
    • a string, which MUST be interpreted as an absolute URL.

    If a @language property is used, it MUST have a string value that adheres to the syntax defined in [[!BCP47]], or be null.

  • If a @type property is used on an object without a @value property, its value MUST be one of:

    • one of the legitimate values for @type as defined for any of the description objects in this specification.
    • a prefixed name using any of the pre-defined prefixes as described in .
    • a string, which MUST be interpreted as an absolute URL.

    A @type property can also have a value that is an array of such values.

  • The values of @id properties are link properties and are treated as URLs. During normalization, as described in , they will have any prefix expanded and the result resolved against the base URL. Therefore, if an @id property is used on an object, it MUST have a value that is a string and that string MUST NOT start with _:.

  • A @language property MUST NOT be used on an object unless it also has a @value property.

  • Aside from @value, @type, @language, and @id, the properties used on an object MUST NOT start with @.

These restrictions are also described in , from the perspective of a processor that otherwise supports JSON-LD. Examples of common property values and the impact of normalization are given in .

Dialect Descriptions

Much of the tabular data that is published on the web is messy, and CSV parsers frequently need to be configured in order to correctly read in CSV. A dialect description provides hints to parsers about how to parse the file linked to from the url property in a table description. It can have any of the following properties, which relate to the flags described in Section 5 Parsing Tabular Data within the [[!tabular-data-model]]:

commentPrefix

An atomic property that sets the comment prefix flag to the single provided value, which MUST be a string. The default is "#".

delimiter

An atomic property that sets the delimiter flag to the single provided value, which MUST be a string. The default is ",".

doubleQuote

A boolean atomic property that, if true, sets the escape character flag to ". If false, to \. The default is true.

encoding

An atomic property that sets the encoding flag to the single provided string value, which MUST be a defined in [[!encoding]]. The default is "utf-8".

header

A boolean atomic property that, if true, sets the header row count flag to 1, and if false to 0, unless headerRowCount is provided, in which case the value provided for the header property is ignored. The default is true.

headerRowCount

A numeric atomic property that sets the header row count flag to the single provided value, which MUST be a non-negative integer. The default is 1.

lineTerminators

An atomic property that sets the line terminators flag to either an array containing the single provided string value, or the provided array. The default is ["\r\n", "\n"].

quoteChar

An atomic property that sets the quote character flag to the single provided value, which MUST be a string or null. If the value is null, the escape character flag is also set to null. The default is '"'.

skipBlankRows

A boolean atomic property that sets the skip blank rows flag to the single provided boolean value. The default is false.

skipColumns

A numeric atomic property that sets the skip columns flag to the single provided numeric value, which MUST be a non-negative integer. The default is 0.

skipInitialSpace

A boolean atomic property that, if true, sets the trim flag to "start" and if false, to false. If the trim property is provided, the skipInitialSpace property is ignored. The default is false.

skipRows

A numeric atomic property that sets the skip rows flag to the single provided numeric value, which MUST be a non-negative integer. The default is 0.

trim

An atomic property that, if the boolean true, sets the trim flag to true and if the boolean false to false. If the value provided is a string, sets the trim flag to the provided value, which MUST be one of "true", "false", "start", or "end". The default is true.

@id

If included, @id is a link property that identifies the dialect described by this dialect description. It MUST NOT start with _:.

@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "Dialect". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

Dialect descriptions do not provide a mechanism for handling CSV files in which there are multiple tables within a single file (e.g. separated by empty lines).

The default dialect description for CSV files is:

{
  "encoding": "utf-8",
  "lineTerminators": ["\r\n", "\n"],
  "quoteChar": "\"",
  "doubleQuote": true,
  "skipRows": 0,
  "commentPrefix": "#",
  "header": true,
  "headerRowCount": 1,
  "delimiter": ",",
  "skipColumns": 0,
  "skipBlankRows": false,
  "skipInitialSpace": false,
  "trim": false
}

Transformation Definitions

A transformation definition is a definition of how tabular data can be transformed into another format using a script or template.

For example, the following transformation definition will enable a processor that supports it to generate an iCalendar document using a Mustache template based on the JSON created from the simple mapping to JSON.

{
"url": "templates/ical.txt",
"titles": "iCalendar",
"targetFormat": "http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/calendar",
"scriptFormat": "https://mustache.github.io/",
"source": "json"
}
        

A processor that recognises templates in the Mustache format indicated by "https://mustache.github.io/" and that could convert tables into JSON based on [[!csv2json]] would retrieve the template from "templates/ical.txt" and apply this to the resulting JSON.

Transformation definitions have the following properties:

Required Properties

Transformation definitions MUST have the following properties:

url

A link property giving the single URL of the file that the script or template is held in, relative to the location of the metadata document.

scriptFormat

A link property giving the single URL for the format that is used by the script or template. If one has been defined, this should be a URL for a media type, in the form http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-type such as http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/application/javascript. Otherwise, it can be any URL that describes the script or template format.

The scriptFormat URL is intended as an informative identifier for the template format, and applications SHOULD NOT access the URL. The template formats that an application supports are implementation defined.

targetFormat

A link property giving the single URL for the format that will be created through the transformation. If one has been defined, this should be a URL for a media type, in the form http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-type such as http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/text/calendar. Otherwise, it can be any URL that describes the target format.

The targetFormat URL is intended as an informative identifier for the target format, and applications SHOULD NOT access the URL.

Optional Properties

Transformation definitions MAY have the following properties:

source

A single string atomic property that provides, if specified, the format to which the tabular data should be transformed prior to the transformation using the script or template. If the value is json, the tabular data MUST first be transformed to JSON as defined by [[!csv2json]] using standard mode. If the value is rdf, the tabular data MUST first be transformed to an RDF graph as defined by [[!csv2rdf]] using standard mode. If the source property is missing or null (the default) then the source of the transformation is the annotated tabular data model. No other values are valid; applications MUST generate a warning and behave as if the property had not been specified.

titles

A natural language property that describes the format that will be generated from the transformation. This is useful if the target format is a generic format (such as application/json) and the transformation is creating a specific profile of that format.

@id

If included, @id is a link property that identifies the transformation described by this transformation definition. It MUST NOT start with _:.

@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "Template". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

The transformation definition MAY contain any common properties to provide extra metadata about the transformation.

Processing Transformation Definitions

Implementations MAY present users with options for transformations based on the available transformation definitions and their properties. Implementations SHOULD filter this list to only include those transformations whose scriptFormat they understand and can apply, and whose source property, if present, specifies a format that the implementation can convert to. Users may find the targetFormat and titles properties useful in deciding which transformation to apply.

When directed by a user to transform a table using a transformation definition, implementations MUST:

  1. Convert the table to the format specified by the source property, if this is specified and not null.
  2. Fetch the script or template from the location specified by the url property and raise an error if this does not exist.
  3. Use the scriptFormat property to determine how to interpret that script or template, and apply it to the table (or the result of converting the table).

Datatypes

Cells within tables may be annotated with a datatype which indicates the type of the values obtained by parsing the string value of the cell. See [[!tabular-data-model]] for a description of annotations on a datatype.

Built-in Datatypes

The possible built-in datatypes, as shown on the diagram, are:

  • the datatypes defined in [[!xmlschema11-2]] as derived from and including anyAtomicType, whose identifier URLs are generated by prefixing the name with http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#.
  • the datatype number whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#double.
  • the datatype binary whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#base64Binary.
  • the datatype datetime whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime.
  • the datatype any whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#anyAtomicType.
  • the datatype xml, a sub-type of string, whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#XMLLiteral and which indicates the value is an XML fragment.
  • the datatype html, a sub-type of string, whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#HTML and which indicates the value is an HTML fragment.
  • the datatype json, a sub-type of string, whose identifier URL is http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw#JSON and which indicates the value is serialized JSON.
Built-in Datatype Hierarchy diagram
Diagram showing the built-in datatypes, based on [[!xmlschema11-2]]; names in parentheses denote aliases to the [[!xmlschema11-2]] terms (see the diagram in SVG or PNG formats)

Derived Datatypes

More specialized datatypes can be defined through a datatype description. A datatype description may have any of the following properties, all of which are optional.

base

An atomic property that contains a single string: the name of one of the built-in datatypes, as listed above (and which are defined as terms in the default context). Its default is string. All values of the datatype MUST be valid values of the base datatype. The value of this property becomes the base annotation for the described datatype.

format

An atomic property that contains either a single string or an object that defines the format of a value of this type, used when parsing a string value as described in Parsing Cells in [[!tabular-data-model]]. The value of this property becomes the format annotation for the described datatype.

length

A numeric atomic property that contains a single integer that is the exact length of the value. The value of this property becomes the length annotation for the described datatype. See Length Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

minLength

An atomic property that contains a single integer that is the minimum length of the value. The value of this property becomes the minimum length annotation for the described datatype. See Length Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

maxLength

A numeric atomic property that contains a single integer that is the maximum length of the value. The value of this property becomes the maximum length annotation for the described datatype. See Length Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

minimum

An atomic property that contains a single number or string that is the minimum valid value (inclusive); equivalent to minInclusive. The value of this property becomes the minimum annotation for the described datatype. See Value Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

maximum

An atomic property that contains a single number or string that is the maximum valid value (inclusive); equivalent to maxInclusive. The value of this property becomes the maximum annotation for the described datatype. See Value Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

minInclusive

An atomic property that contains a single number or string that is the minimum valid value (inclusive). The value of this property becomes the minimum annotation for the described datatype. See Value Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

maxInclusive

An atomic property that contains a single number or string that is the maximum valid value (inclusive). The value of this property becomes the maximum annotation for the described datatype. See Value Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

minExclusive

An atomic property that contains a single number or string that is the minimum valid value (exclusive). The value of this property becomes the minimum exclusive annotation for the described datatype. See Value Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

maxExclusive

An atomic property that contains a single number or string that is the maximum valid value (exclusive). The value of this property becomes the maximum exclusive annotation for the described datatype. See Value Constraints in [[!tabular-data-model]] for details.

@id

If included, @id is a link property that identifies the datatype described by this datatype description. The value of this property becomes the id annotation for the described datatype. It MUST NOT start with _: and it MUST NOT be the URL of a built-in datatype.

@type

If included, @type is an atomic property that MUST be set to "Datatype". Publishers MAY include this to provide additional information to JSON-LD based toolchains.

The datatype description MAY contain any common properties to provide extra metadata about the datatype, such as a title or description.

Applications MUST raise an error if the @id property has the value of a built-in datatype and any other property is specified. In these cases, the other properties are ignored.

Applications MUST raise an error if both length and minLength are specified and length is less than minLength. Similarly, applications MUST raise an error if both length and maxLength are specified and length is greater than maxLength. Applications MUST raise an error if minLength and maxLength are both specified and minLength is greater than maxLength. Applications MUST raise an error if length, maxLength, or minLength are specified and the base datatype is neither string, a subtype of string, nor a binary type.

In all ways, including the errors described below, the minimum property is equivalent to the minInclusive property and the maximum property is equivalent to the maxInclusive property. Applications MUST raise an error if both minimum and minInclusive are specified and they do not have the same value. Similarly, applications MUST raise an error if both maximum and maxInclusive are specified and they do not have the same value.

Applications MUST raise an error if both minInclusive and minExclusive are specified, or if both maxInclusive and maxExclusive are specified. Applications MUST raise an error if both minInclusive and maxInclusive are specified and maxInclusive is less than minInclusive, or if both minInclusive and maxExclusive are specified and maxExclusive is less than or equal to minInclusive. Similarly, applications MUST raise an error if both minExclusive and maxExclusive are specified and maxExclusive is less than minExclusive, or if both minExclusive and maxInclusive are specified and maxInclusive is less than or equal to minExclusive.

Applications MUST raise an error if minimum, minInclusive, maximum, maxInclusive, minExclusive, or maxExclusive are specified and the base datatype is not a numeric, date/time, or duration type.

Validation against these properties is as defined in [[!xmlschema11-2]].

The format property is not used when interpreting values for the minimum, maximum, minInclusive, maxInclusive, minExclusive, or maxExclusive values. If these values are strings, they must be specified using a valid representation appropriate for the datatype base as defined in [[!xmlschema11-2]]. For example:

{
  "datatype": "date",
  "format": "dd/MM/yyyy",
  "minimum": "2000-01-01"
}
            

Normalization

A description object is normalized as follows:

  1. If the property is a common property or notes the value MUST be normalized as follows:
    1. If the value is an array, each value within the array is normalized in place as described here.
    2. If the value is a string, replace it with an object with a @value property whose value is that string. If a default language is specified, add a @language property whose value is that default language.
    3. If the value is an object with a @value property, it remains as is.
    4. If the value is any other object, normalize each property of that object as follows:
      1. If the property is @id, expand any prefixed names and resolve its value against the base URL.
      2. If the property is @type, then its value remains as is.
      3. Otherwise, normalize the value of the property as if it were a common property, according to this algorithm.
    5. Otherwise, the value remains as is.
  2. If the property is an array property each element of the value is normalized using this algorithm.
  3. If the property is a link property the value is turned into an absolute URL using the base URL and normalized as described in URL Normalization [[!tabular-data-model]].
  4. If the property is an object property with a string value, the string is a URL referencing a JSON document containing a single object. Fetch this URL to retrieve an object, which may have a local @context. Normalize each property in the resulting object recursively using this algorithm and with its local @context then remove the local @context property. If the resulting object does not have an @id property, add an @id whose value is the original URL. This object becomes the value of the original object property.
  5. If the property is an object property with an object value, normalize each property recursively using this algorithm.
  6. If the property is a natural language property and the value is not already an object, it is turned into an object whose properties are language codes and where the values of those properties are arrays. The suitable language code for the values is determined through the default language; if it can't be determined the language code und MUST be used.
  7. If the property is an atomic property that can be a string or an object, normalize to the object form as described for that property.

Following this normalization process, the @base and @language properties within the @context are no longer relevant; the normalized metadata can have its @context set to http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw.

Examples

The following are examples of how common properties are normalized.

In this example, a simple string is used as the title for a table using the dc:title common property:

{
  "@context": { "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", { "@language": "en" } },
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "dc:title": "The title of this Table"
}
        

Since there is a default language, this is equivalent to explicitly specifying the language of that title; the original string value becomes the value of the @value property within a value object:

{
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "dc:title": {"@value": "The title of this Table", "@language": "en"}
}
        

It is also possible to use a simple value object to give a title. However, in this case the default language is not applied to the title:

{
  "@context": { "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", { "@language": "en" } },
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "dc:title": {"@value": "The title of this Table"}
}
        

The next example uses an array of a string and a value object to give two titles with different languages:

{
  "@context": { "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", { "@language": "en" } },
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "dc:title": [
    "The title of this Table",
    {"@value": "Der Titel dieser Tabelle", "@language": "de"}
  ]
}
        

The normalized version of this is:

{
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "dc:title": [
    {"@value": "The title of this Table", "@language": "en"}
    {"@value": "Der Titel dieser Tabelle", "@language": "de"}
  ]
}
        

The next example demonstrates a node object, in which the value of the schema:url property is a reference to another resource:

{
  "@context": [ "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw", { "@base": "http://example.com/" } ],
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "schema:url": {"@id": "table.csv"}
}
        

The value of the @id property is normalized as described in against the base URL provided through the @base property, which means the above example is equivalent to:

{
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "schema:url": {"@id": "http://example.com/table.csv"}
}
        

The following example shows the dc:publisher property as an array that contains a single node object:

{
  "@context": "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw",
  "@type": "Table",
  "url": "http://example.com/table.csv",
  "tableSchema": [...],
  "dc:publisher": [{
    "schema:name": "Example Municipality",
    "schema:url": {"@id": "http://example.org"}
  }],
}
        

Following normalization, the schema:name property of the dc:publisher is expanded as shown:

"dc:publisher": [{
  "schema:name": { "@value": "Example Municipality" },
  "schema:url": { "@id": "http://example.org" }
}]
        

Security Considerations

Applications that process tabular data may use that data to drive other actions, which may have security implications. These behaviors are outside the scope of this specification.

Third party metadata provided about a tabular data file (such as a CSV file) may rename or ignore headers, or exclude rows or columns, which may lead to data being misinterpreted by applications that process it.

Transformation definitions are a possible security risk as they enable the creators of metadata to reference arbitrary code that may be executed to convert tabular data into other formats. Implementations should run this arbitrary code in a sandboxed environment to reduce the security risk.

JSON-LD Dialect

The Metadata Vocabulary for Tabular Data uses a format based on JSON-LD [[!JSON-LD]] with some restrictions.

URL Compaction

When normalizing metadata, prefixed names used in common properties and notes are expanded to absolute URLs. For some serializations, these are more appropriately presented using prefixed names or terms. This algorithm compacts an absolute URL to a prefixed name or term.

  1. If the URL exactly matches the absolute IRI associated with a term in [[csvw-context]], replace the URL with that term.
  2. Otherwise, if the URL starts with the absolute IRI associated with a term in [[csvw-context]], replace the matched part of that URL with the term separated with a : (U+0040) to create a prefixed name. If the resulting prefixed name is rdf:type, replace with @type.

Acknowledgements

This document is influenced by Data Package specification and the JSON Table Schema, which are maintained as part of Data Protocols. Particular contributors to that work are Rufus Pollock, Paul Fitzpatrick, Andrew Berkeley, Francis Irving, Benoit Chesneau, Leigh Dodds, Martin Keegan, and Gunnlaugur Thor Briem.

IANA Considerations

application/csvm+json
Type name:
application
Subtype name:
csvm+json
Required parameters:
N/A
Optional parameters:
N/A
Encoding considerations:
Binary, as per [[RFC6839]], section 3.1; the charset parameter is not used and byte-order marks are not permitted, as per [[RFC7159]], sections 11 and 8.1
Security considerations:
See [[RFC7159]] section 12 and of this specification
Interoperability considerations:
Note that this format is not the same as the existing text/csv and text/tab-delimited-values media types, but a JSON-based format used to annotate such documents. Also see [[RFC7159]] for interoperability information for JSON.
Published specification:
This specification.
Applications that use this media type:
It is anticipated that there is a broad need for data validators and converters to alternate structured representations of tabular data. It is expected that many applications and programming languages will be using this media type across many operating systems.
Fragment identifier considerations:
See [[RFC6839]], section 3.1
Additional information:
Magic number(s):
None.

Although no byte sequence can be guaranteed at a specific location, a valid application/csvm+json document MUST somewhere contain the string "@context" (including quotation characters), followed by one or more whitespace, colon or open-square-bracket characters, followed by the string "http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw" (including quotation characters).

File extension(s):
".json"
Macintosh file type code(s):
"TEXT"
Macintosh Universal Type Identifier code:
org.w3c.csvm conforms to public.json
Windows Clipboard Name
Tabular Metadata in JSON
Person & email address to contact for further information:
Ivan Herman <ivan@w3.org>
Intended usage:
COMMON
Restrictions on usage:
None
Author/Change controller:
The Tabular metadata specification is the product of the CSV on the Web Working Group. The W3C reserves change control over this specification.

JSON-LD Context

The JSON-LD context, located at http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw.jsonld is used with metadata documents. When used within a metadata document, the context can be referenced as http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw. See [[csvw-context]] for a full description of defined terms and prefixes. This context may be updated from time-to-time to define new terms and prefixes.

A JSON-LD processor retrieving the context will use content negotiation to request the resource at http://www.w3.org/ns/csvw with an Accept: application/ld+json HTTP header as defined in Remote Document and Context Retrieval in [[!JSON-LD-API]]. Without this header, this resource will return an HTML representation of the csvw namespace. All serializations of this resource also define the metadata vocabulary using RDFS.

Changes from previous drafts

Changes since the candidate recommendation of 16 July 2015

Changes since the working draft of 16 April 2015

Changes since the working draft of 08 January 2015

The document has undergone substantial changes since the last working draft. Below are some of the changes made: