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Metadata Extractors

SkyVault performs metadata extraction on content automatically, however, you may wish to create custom metadata extractors to handle custom file properties and custom content models.
Information Metadata Extractors
Support Status Full Support
Architecture Information Platform Architecture
Description Every time a file is uploaded to the SkyVault Repository the file's MIME type is automatically detected. Based on the MIME type a related Metadata Extractor is invoked on the file. It will extract common properties from the file, such as author, and set the corresponding content model property accordingly. Each Metadata Extractor has a mapping between the properties it can extract and the content model properties.

SkyVault metadata extraction is primarily based on the Apache Tika library. This means that whatever file formats Tika can extract metadata from, SkyVault can also handle. To give you an idea of what file formats SkyVault can extract metadata from, here is a list of the most common formats:

  • PDF (
  • MS Office
  • Open Office
  • MP3, MP4, QuickTime
  • JPEG, TIFF, PNG
  • DWG
  • HTML
  • XML
  • Email

The properties that are extracted are limited to the out-of-the-box content model, which is very generic. Here are some example of extracted property name and what content model property it maps to:

  • author -> cm:author
  • title -> cm:title
  • subject -> cm:description
  • created -> cm:created
  • description -> NOT MAPPED - you could map it in a custom configuration
  • comments -> NOT MAPPED - you could map it in a custom configuration
  • If it is an image file:
  • EXIF metadata -> exif:exif (pixel dimensions, manufacturer, model, software, date-time etc.)
  • Geo metadata -> cm:geographic (longitude & latitude)
  • If it is an audio file -> audio:audio (album, artist, composer, engineer, genre etc.)
  • If it is an email file -> cm:emailed (from, to, subject, sent date)

One thing to note though, event if an extractor can extract any of the system controlled properties, such as created date, it will not be used. Created date, creator, modified date, and modifier is always controlled by the SkyVault system, unless you are using the SkyVault Bulk Import tool, in which case last modified date can be preserved.

A common requirement is to be able to change the mapping of out-of-the-box properties, such as having the subject property mapped to cm:title instead of cm:description. This is quite easy to achieve, just override the out-of-the-box bean and re-configure the mapping. The out-of-the-box Spring bean definitions for Metadata Extractors can be found in the content-services-context.xml file, which is located here. Search for "Content Metadata Extractors" in the file and then you will find an ordered list of extractor definitions.

When overriding a Metadata Extractor configuration you have the option to inherit the default properties mapping or define a new one from scratch. For example, to change the subject property so it is mapped to content model property cm:title for PDF files re-define the extracter.PDFBox Spring bean as follows:

<bean id="extracter.PDFBox" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.PdfBoxMetadataExtracter"        
    parent="baseMetadataExtracter">
  <property name="documentSelector" ref="pdfBoxEmbededDocumentSelector" />
  <property name="inheritDefaultMapping">
      <value>false</value>
  </property>
  <property name="mappingProperties">
      <props>
          <prop key="namespace.prefix.cm">http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0</prop>
          <prop key="author">cm:author</prop>
          <prop key="subject">cm:title</prop>
          <prop key="Keywords">cm:description</prop>
      </props>
  </property>
</bean>
In this case you also map the author property. This is because when you set the inheritDefaultMapping property to false all the default property mappings are not used. Another property called Keywords have also been mapped to the cm:description property. Note that all the namespaces that the content model properties belong to have to be specified as in the above example with namespace.prefix.cm. It is also very important to know that the property names are case sensitive. So if the Keyword property had been written with a lower-case k, it would not have been picked up. Sometimes it can be useful to know what metadata extractor that is actually used when you upload a document. Turning on Metadata Extractionb logging is a good idea to get on top of what is happening. Set the following property in log4j.properties: 
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata=DEBUG
With logging turned on the following information will be logged when uploading a PDF:
 2015-12-07 13:56:51,324  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Get extractors for application/pdf
2015-12-07 13:56:51,324  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Finding extractors for application/pdf
2015-12-07 13:56:51,326  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find supported:   extracter.TikaAuto
2015-12-07 13:56:51,326  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find supported:   extracter.PDFBox
2015-12-07 13:56:51,326  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.Poi
2015-12-07 13:56:51,326  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.Office
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.Mail
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.Html
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.OpenDocument
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.DWG
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.RFC822
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.MP3
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.Audio
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: extracter.OpenOffice
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find unsupported: org.alfresco.tutorial.metadataextracter.xml.AcmeDocXMLMetadataExtracter
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Find returning:   [org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.TikaAutoMetadataExtracter@763b7315, org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.PdfBoxMetadataExtracter@6acadc76]
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Get supported:   extracter.TikaAuto
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Get supported:   extracter.PDFBox
2015-12-07 13:56:51,327  DEBUG [content.metadata.MetadataExtracterRegistry] [http-bio-8080-exec-14] Get returning:   extracter.PDFBox
You can clearly see that the PDFBox extractor is invoked so you know you have customized the correct one. What about the properties? It is likely that you will struggle to figure out what properties are extracted and their names. You can have this logged with the following log file configuration: 
log4j.logger.org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.AbstractMappingMetadataExtracter=DEBUG
This log configuration is set to some other log level out-of-the-box so you need to specifically re-configure it to be able to see something. Now when running you will also see the extracted doc properties as in the following example:
Found: {
   pdf:PDFVersion=1.4, 
   xmp:CreatorTool=Writer, 
   Keywords=SomeKeyword1, SomeKeyword2, 
   subject=SomeSubject, 
   dc:creator=Martin Bergljung, 
   description=SomeSubject, 
   dcterms:created=2015-12-07T14:22:15Z, 
   dc:format=application/pdf; version=1.4, 
   title=SomeTitle, 
   dc:title=SomeTitle, 
   pdf:encrypted=false, 
   cp:subject=SomeSubject, 
   Content-Type=application/pdf, 
   creator=Martin Bergljung, 
   comments=null, 
   meta:author=Martin Bergljung, 
   dc:subject=SomeKeyword1, SomeKeyword2, 
   meta:creation-date=2015-12-07T14:22:15Z, 
   created=2015-12-07T14:22:15Z, 
   author=Martin Bergljung, 
   xmpTPg:NPages=1, 
   Creation-Date=2015-12-07T14:22:15Z, 
   meta:keyword=SomeKeyword1, SomeKeyword2, 
   Author=Martin Bergljung, producer=LibreOffice 4.2
}

There is also a log entry with information about what properties that were actually successfully mapped: 

Mapped and Accepted: {
   {http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}description={en_GB=SomeKeyword1, SomeKeyword2}, 
   {http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}title={en_GB=SomeSubject}, 
   {http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0}author=Martin Bergljung}

Next requirement is most likely to map properties to custom content models. The SkyVault Tutorials have an ACME content model where the base document type have an acme:documentId property. You might want to add a document identifier to the PDFs you are uploading and have it automatically set in the ACME content model. Start by updating the extractor configuration as follows:

<bean id="extracter.PDFBox" class="org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.PdfBoxMetadataExtracter"
       parent="baseMetadataExtracter">
     <property name="documentSelector" ref="pdfBoxEmbededDocumentSelector" />
     <property name="inheritDefaultMapping">
         <value>false</value>
     </property>
     <property name="mappingProperties">
         <props>
             <prop key="namespace.prefix.cm">http://www.alfresco.org/model/content/1.0</prop>
             <prop key="namespace.prefix.acme">http://www.acme.org/model/content/1.0</prop>
             <prop key="author">cm:author</prop>
             <prop key="subject">cm:title</prop>
             <prop key="Keywords">cm:description</prop>
             <prop key="DocumentId">acme:documentId</prop>
         </props>
     </property>
 </bean>

Here the custom document property DocumentId has been added so it is mapped to the ACME content model property acme:documentId. When doing this you also need to define the new custom namespace acme. For this to work you need to have a rule on the folder that applies the acme:document type to any PDF document uploaded to the folder. This type has the acme:docuementId property.

Now, what if you would like to extract metadata from an XML file, how would you go about that? This can be achieved with the XmlMetadataExtracter, which in-turn uses the XPathMetadataExtracter to navigate the XML and extract metadata. Let's say we had XML files looking like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<doc id="doc001">
    <project>
        <number>PX001</number>
    </project>
    <securityClassification>Company Confidential</securityClassification>
    <text>
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent tincidunt luctus ante, in pulvinar ante rutrum
        quis. Etiam maximus arcu ut metus sollicitudin laoreet. Pellentesque ac purus nec massa euismod iaculis a sed
        sapien. Integer id nisi eu tellus commodo congue. In bibendum dapibus porttitor. Aenean lobortis sodales risus
         ....
    </text>
</doc>
And whenever we upload one we want to have the /doc/@id attribute set as acme:documentId, /doc/project/number set as acme:projectNumber, and /doc/securityClassification set as acme:securityClassification. This will require configuration like this, note these are new bean definitions, no overrides as in previous examples: 
<bean id="org.alfresco.tutorial.metadataextracter.xml.AcmeDocXPathMetadataExtracter"
    class="org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.xml.XPathMetadataExtracter"
    parent="baseMetadataExtracter"
    init-method="init">
  <property name="mappingProperties">
      <bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
          <property name="location">
              <value>
                  classpath:alfresco/module/${project.artifactId}/metadataextraction/acme-content-model-mappings.properties
              </value>
          </property>
      </bean>
  </property>
  <property name="xpathMappingProperties">
      <bean class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertiesFactoryBean">
          <property name="location">
              <value>
                  classpath:alfresco/module/${project.artifactId}/metadataextraction/acme-xml-doc-xpath-mappings.properties
              </value>
          </property>
      </bean>
  </property>
</bean>

<bean id="org.alfresco.tutorial.metadataextracter.xml.selector.AcmeDocXPathSelector"
    class="org.alfresco.repo.content.selector.XPathContentWorkerSelector"
    init-method="init">
  <property name="workers">
      <map>
          <entry key="/*">
              <ref bean="org.alfresco.tutorial.metadataextracter.xml.AcmeDocXPathMetadataExtracter"/>
          </entry>
      </map>
  </property>
</bean>

<bean id="org.alfresco.tutorial.metadataextracter.xml.AcmeDocXMLMetadataExtracter"
      class="org.alfresco.repo.content.metadata.xml.XmlMetadataExtracter"
      parent="baseMetadataExtracter">
  <property name="overwritePolicy">
      <value>EAGER</value> <!-- Put the extracted metadata into the content model property as long as it is not null -->
  </property>
  <property name="selectors">
      <list>
          <ref bean="org.alfresco.tutorial.metadataextracter.xml.selector.AcmeDocXPathSelector"/>
      </list>
  </property>
</bean>

The acme-content-model-mappings.properties file contains mappings from the extracted XML doc properties to the content model properties:

# Namespaces
namespace.prefix.acme=http://www.acme.org/model/content/1.0

# Mappings - metadata property -> content model property
documentId=acme:documentId
securityClassification=acme:securityClassification
projectNumber=acme:projectNumber

The property mapping can always be done in .properties files if we like, and we could have used a .properties file for the PDFBoxMetadataExtracter too. The other properties file called acme-xml-doc-xpath-mappings.properties contains the XPath expression configuration for where to find the metadata in the XML file:

# XPath Mappings - metadata property -> XML Document XPATH
documentId=/doc/@id
securityClassification=/doc/securityClassification
projectNumber=/doc/project/number
Deployment - App Server
  • tomcat/shared/classes/alfresco/extension - change name of custom-metadata-extrators-context.xml.sample to custom-metadata-extrators-context.xml and define extractor beans. Change name of metadata-embedding-context.xml.sample to metadata-embedding-context.xml and make embedder bean definitions.
Deployment - SDK Project
  • repo-amp/src/main/amp/config/alfresco/module/repo-amp/context/service-context.xml - Metadata Extractor bean definitions and metadata embedder bean definitions
  • repo-amp/src/main/amp/config/alfresco/module/repo-amp/metadataextraction - Properties files with mappings
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Parent topic: Platform extension points

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