[OSGeo-Edu] Update on the Metadata Chapter of the Free GIS Book

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

I've recently started wondering about metadata standards for tracking  
more technical dataset attributes.  It seems that some pretty  
informative information doesn't make it into specifications for some  
reason.

I've been modifying some scripts that Matt Perry and I wrote a while  
ago that collects basic dataset/layer information.  The script  
recursively walks through a set of directories/files and reports on  
which ones GDAL/OGR can open.  I updated it to output the analysis in  
a form of XML (instead of the delimited text I used to use) - so when  
I had to start thinking about a schema I went searching for  
standards.  Not finding any, I started to make my own.

If you are interested, have a look at the example below for the kinds  
of elements I'm tracking.  Could these lower-level items make it into  
a discussion on metadata at some point?  I find that these attributes  
are ones that can really help automation of processes but are the  
very ones usually ignored by standards.

Tyler
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<DataCatalogue>
     <CatalogueProcess>
         <SearchPath>../</SearchPath>
         <LaunchPath>/Users/tyler/code/nme/cat</LaunchPath>
         <UserHome>/Users/tyler</UserHome>
         <IgnoredStrings>['.svn', '.shx', '.dbf']</IgnoredStrings>
         <DirCount>44</DirCount>
         <FileCount>119</FileCount>
         <Timestamp>Wed Jan 23 11:29:58 2008</Timestamp>
     </CatalogueProcess>
     <VectorData>
         <datasourceId>1</datasourceId>
         <name>../data_example/shp</name>
         <layercount>5</layercount>
         <format>ESRI Shapefile</format>
         <VectorLayer>
             <featurecount>1</featurecount>
             <name>buf_hull</name>
             <extent>(-5.2264717603724069, 143.19359180565968,  
42.418215273515429, 287.96378357150178)</extent>
             <layerId>1</layerId>
         </VectorLayer>
         <VectorLayer>
             <featurecount>1</featurecount>
             <name>linebuf</name>
             <extent>(-5.2264717603724069, 143.19359180565968,  
42.418215273515429, 287.96378357150178)</extent>
             <layerId>3</layerId>
         </VectorLayer>
         <VectorLayer>
             <featurecount>8</featurecount>
             <name>line</name>
             <extent>(-3.924027383409785, 141.77937824328657,  
43.417968752500002, 286.96378357150178)</extent>
             <layerId>2</layerId>
         </VectorLayer>
         <VectorLayer>
             <featurecount>1</featurecount>
             <name>vanisland</name>
             <extent>(-128.31944636678202, -123.44387543252594,  
48.161439446366785, 50.973176470588243)</extent>
             <layerId>5</layerId>
         </VectorLayer>
         <VectorLayer>
             <featurecount>1</featurecount>
             <name>vanisl_proj</name>
             <extent>(-127.48989349743159, -127.48984981726348,  
0.00043438545857253316, 0.00045974550950280422)</extent>
             <layerId>4</layerId>
         </VectorLayer>
     </VectorData>
     <RasterData>
         <name>../data_example/img/bg.jpg</name>
         <RasterBand>
             <bandId>1</bandId>
             <max>255.0</max>
             <overviews>0</overviews>
             <min>88.0</min>
         </RasterBand>
         <RasterBand>
             <bandId>3</bandId>
             <max>255.0</max>
             <overviews>0</overviews>
             <min>99.0</min>
         </RasterBand>
         <RasterBand>
             <bandId>2</bandId>
             <max>255.0</max>
             <overviews>0</overviews>
             <min>99.0</min>
         </RasterBand>
         <rasterX>1280</rasterX>
         <rasterY>10</rasterY>
         <driver>JPEG JFIF</driver>
         <project></project>
         <boundcount>3</boundcount>
         <rasterId>1</rasterId>
         <geotrans>(0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0)</geotrans>
     </RasterData>
  snip....