contentUrl for each format of a file (original proprietary vs archival)

[pdurbin]

For some proprietary file formats such as Excel, Stata, and SPSS, Dataverse creates non-proprietary formats (TSV and RData) of uploaded files for archival purposes. Plus a TSV version might be good enough for a researcher who doesn't have the proprietary software installed.

Our Croissant output is still a work in progress but for now I'm favoring the original, proprietary format under contentUrl like this:

{
    "@type": "cr:FileObject",
    "@id": "stata13-auto.dta",
    "name": "stata13-auto.dta",
    "encodingFormat": "application/x-stata-13",
    "md5": "7b1201ce6b469796837a835377338c5a",
    "contentSize": "6443 B",
    "contentUrl": "http://localhost:8080/api/access/datafile/6?format=original"
}

However, if I wanted to advertise that non-proprietary formats (TSV and RData) are available as well, what's the best practice in Croissant?

Would each format be another FileObject? In our UI (below), we show a single file with multiple download options but maybe from the Croissant perspective these formats would be better represented as different files? They would have different checksums and sizes, after all. 🤔

[benjelloun]

I would lean towards representing them as separate FileObjects. If we want to preserve the connection between them, we could specify sc:encoding pointing from the original file to each of the alternative formats. Would that make sense?

[pdurbin]

@benjelloun sort of? Is there a concrete example in the examples at https://github.com/mlcommons/croissant/tree/v1.0.5/datasets/1.0 ? I looked quickly but couldn't find one.

Either way, it sounds like this could be something we add later. I think most of our users will be happy with the original file.