Exporting profiles
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DROID can export all open profiles (which are not currently running) to a CSV file.  To export a profile, press the    Export   button, or select the File / Export all... menu item. This shows the export dialog. The profiles you have open are listed in the export window.  If a profile is empty, or in the process of running, it is greyed out.  Select all the profiles you want to export into a single CSV file by checking the boxes next to them.   If any of your profiles have active filters, then the results will also be filtered.  Each profile can have different filters defined and enabled.

There are two possible ways of exporting the profiles.

Selecting the columns for export

When the "Use export template" checkbox is unchecked, you are presented with an option to select one or more columns that you wish to export, as shown below:

CSV File Columns

ID

This is a unique number assigned to each file, folder or archival file processed by DROID.

PARENT_ID

This is the id of the archival file or folder in which this file is contained.

URI (Uniform Resource Identifier)

This provides a standard, cross-platform way of describing where resources are located.  URIs are described in more detail in "Information collected by DROID".

File path

The file system location of the resource being profiled, if the resource was directly in a file system.  Some files are not on the file system - for example, files inside a zip file. In this case, the file paths are written relative to the parent file which exists on the file system. Such paths also include the type of archive as a prefix.

Please note that file paths are platform dependent (they are different on Windows and unix).  DROID will write out file paths for the system on which it is currently running.  This means that if you profile files on a unix machine, then export the profiles on a Windows machine, the file paths will be written out as if they were Windows file paths, and vice versa.

Name

The file name of the resource being profiled.

Method

This field gives the method by which a resource identification has been made.  DROID can recognise resources by several methods:

Job status

This field gives the identification status of a resource.  It can have several values:

Size (bytes)

The size in bytes of a file.  Only files have a size - folders do not.  However, note that some files can contain other files inside them, for example zip files.  In this case, the zip file has a size (as it is a file), and so do the files inside it.  The size reported in all cases is the uncompressed size of each file, as it would appear if extracted from the container file.

Type

DROID categorises the files and folders it profiles as being one of three types:

Extension

The filename extension of a file, which is the last part of a filename following a full stop.  Only files have extensions, as they indicate the type of the file.  Even if a folder has a full stop in its name, it will not be assigned an extension.

Last modified

The date and time on which a resource was last modified.

MD5, SHA1, SHA256 or SHA512 hash

If you have enabled hash generation in the preferences, then this column will contain the MD5, SHA1, SHA256 or SHA512 hash for each file and archival file processed.  See "Detecting duplicate files" for more information on hashes.

PUID

The PRONOM Unique IDentifier (PUID) identifies the precise file format of a profiled file. When a resource has been identified, it is assigned a PUID.   A unique identifier exists for every file format that DROID can recognise, and these identifiers are maintained in the PRONOM technical registry database, hosted at the UK National Archives.

Mime type

The mime-type of an identified file format is a high level format identifier assigned by the Internet Assigned Numbers.  It is widely used in email and other internet protocols to identify the type of resource.  Not all file formats identified by DROID have an assigned mime-type, and different PUIDs assigned by DROID can have the same mime-type

Format Name

The name of an identified file format, as listed in the PRONOM technical registry against its PUID.

Format Version

The version of an identified file format, as listed in the PRONOM technical registry against its PUID.  Not all file formats have a defined version, so this field can be blank even when a file has a PUID.

Selecting a predefined Export Template for export

If you have configured any export templates for use with DROID, the "Use export template" checkbox is enabled. Checking this checkbox shows you a view to select one of the configured templates to be used for export as shown below:

An export template is a simple text file, with a .template extension, which defines customisations of columns to be exported. Using a template, you can customise headers for the data columns, add new columns to the export, convert the data in a column to be uppercase / lowercase and change the order in which columns appear in the export. You can make an export template available to Droid by copying it into the ".droid6\export_templates" folder. An example template is shown below:

        version 1.0
        Identifier: $ID
        LowerName: LCASE($NAME)
        Language: "Simplified English"
        Submitter:
      

The above template indicates:

  1. The template is defined in version 1.0 of template syntax
  2. There are 4 columns to be exported in the order Identifier, LowerName, Language and Submitter
  3. Values in the column "Identifier" are populated using values in the "ID" column
  4. Values in the columns "LowerName" are populated by converting the values from the "NAME" column to lowercase
  5. There is a non-profile column called "Language" and the values are hardcoded to "Simplified English"
  6. There is a non-profile column called "Submitter" and the values are left empty

Other options

Once you have selected the columns to export or selected a template that you wish to use, you can also select other options such as whether the values should be enclosed in quotes when exporting. You can also select whether the export should produce one row per file, or one row per format.  When exporting one row per file, each row in the CSV file will represent a single file, folder or archival file profiled with DROID.  If exporting one row per format, each row in the CSV file will be a single format identificaiton made by DROID. Since a file can be identified as being more than one possible format, this option will produce CSV files with multiple rows for the same file (but with different identifications for it).

The characters of the export will be encoded as UTF-8 by default. If you need to set this to the encoding used on your local machine instead, select 'Platform specific' instead.

When you are happy you want to export your profiles, press the    Export profiles...   button.  This will bring up a standard file-save dialog, in which you can specify where you want your CSV file to be saved.  

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