FTP with meta CSV harvester

This harvester allows users to create datasets from an FTP folder.

It connects via FTPS (explicit mode on port 21) if available, or FTP if requested in the provided URL.

The FTP folder must contain:

  • one metadata CSV file (separated with semicolons)
  • several resources
  • (optional) several CSV schema files

Caution

The FTP with meta CSV harvester only supports UTF-8 encoding.

FTP folder layout

Metadata CSV file

The metadata CSV file (named index.csv by default) is a semicolon separated file which contains:

  • one header row
  • several other rows, each one dedicated to a dataset to harvest

Example:

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name;title;description;theme;keyword;source_dataset;schema_file
chocolate-bars;Chocolate bars database;"A database of chocolate bars";Health;Chocolate;chocolate.csv;schema_chocolate.csv
random-id;Venture Capital Investments;Venture capital industry statistics.;Economy, Business;"Venture capital;Investments;IPO;Acquisitions";investments.json;
name title description theme keyword source_dataset schema_file
chocolate-bars Chocolate bars database A database of chocolate bars Health Chocolate chocolate.csv schema_chocolate.csv
random-id Venture Capital Investments Venture capital industry statistics. Economy, Business Venture capital;Investments;IPO;Acquisitions investments.json  
  • The name column contains an identifier for each row. These identifiers can be anything as long as they only contain letters and numbers, are unique across the file, and don't change over time.
  • The CSV resource column (source_dataset by default) contains the resource for each row.
  • The optional CSV shema column (here, schema_file) contains the schema file for each row.
  • Every other column is a metadata (see table below for the complete list of accepted column names). Note: use double quotes at the beginning and end of lists like keyword, where you have to use semicolons to separate words (e.g "keyword1;keyword2").

Accepted metadata columns

Template Column name
Standard title, description, theme, keyword, license, language, timezone, modified, geographic_area_mode, geographic_area, publisher, references, attributions, oauth_scope
Custom <metadata_name>
DCAT (if activated) dcat.created, dcat.issued, dcat.creator, dcat.contributor, dcat.contact_name, dcat.contact_email, dcat.accrualperiodicity, dcat.spatial, dcat.temporal, dcat.granularity, dcat.dataquality
DCAT-AP for CH (if activated) dcat_ap_ch.domain, dcat_ap_ch.rights
Inspire (if activated) inspire.theme, inspire.type, inspire.file_identifier, inspire.hierarchy_level, inspire.hierarchy_level_name, inspire.spatial_resolution, inspire.topologic_consistency, inspire.contact_individual_name, inspire.contact_position, inspire.contact_address, inspire.contact_email, inspire.identification_purpose, inspire.extend_description, inspire.extend_bounding_box_westbound_longitude, inspire.extend_bounding_box_eastbound_longitude, inspire.extend_bounding_box_southbound_latitude, inspire.extend_bounding_box_northbound_latitude
Semantic (if activated) semantic.rml_mapping, semantic.classes, semantic.properties

Resources

Resources can either be:

  • files on the FTP server, in the same folder as the index.csv file, or under a subdirectory by specifying the relative path to the file in the column (e.g "resources/chocolate.csv")
  • any URL pointing towards a supported format

If the column is empty, the dataset will only contain metadata.

Resources in any format supported by the platform can be harvested. However, as the harvester heavily relies on automatic parameters detection for the connector's configuration, files must be simple enough to be correctly extracted.

Schema CSV file

For each resource, the FTP folder can contain a CSV schema file that defines labels and descriptions for each field of the dataset.

The filename of each schema file must be written in the CSV schema column. This file has the following specifications:

  • a name column holds each field name in lowercase (e.g. on a CSV resource, this would be the column names in lowercase)
  • a label column (optional) holds the label of the corresponding field
  • a description column (optional) holds the description of the corresponding field
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name;label;description
company;Company;The company that makes the bar
ref;Reference;The product id of the chocolate bar
name label description
company Company The company that makes the bar
ref Reference The product id of the chocolate bar

The schema files do not need to contain a row for each field, and it is not required to provide a schema file for each dataset in the index.csv. In the latter case, keep the corresponding cell empty.

Parameters

Name Description Example
Host (host) URL of the FTP server eu.ftp.opendatasoft.com, ftps://eu.ftp.opendatasoft.com, ftp://eu.ftp.opendatasoft.com
User (user) Your username  
Password (password) Your password  
Subdirectory (subdir) The directory containing the data you want to harvest. pub/documents
Metadata CSV filename (metadata_file) The file holding the metadata and filenames (see above for more precise specifications). index.csv
Metadata CSV resource column (resource_location_column) This column holds a filename or an URL with the dataset resource. source_dataset
Metadata CSV schema column (resource_schema_column) This column holds a filename with the resource schema (column labels and descriptions).