Archivematica 1.15.1 is an old release, and the documentation is in maintenance mode.

Filename changes

The change filenames microservice runs twice during processing - once on the Transfer tab and once on the Ingest tab. The purpose of this microservice is to ensure that Archivematica’s tools and processes do not fail because of characters that appear in object and directory names.

Archivematica groups a wide variety of tools, such as preservation planning tools, together to create preservation workflows. Some of the tools that Archivematica uses have a narrowly-defined scope in terms of what the tool considers to be a valid character for a file or directory name. Encountering a character that the tool considers to be invalid can cause the tool to fail, which can halt processing and prevent the normal operation of Archivematica.

To prevent these kinds of failures from happening, Archivematica implements a script that changes file and directory names to conform to the requirements of more restrictive tools. Valid characters are defined as the following:

-_.()abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789

The script tries to replace any character that is not included in the above list with its nearest equivalent - for example, the character Č is replaced by C. Where the script cannot find a close equivalent, the character is replaced by an underscore. The change is documented in the METS file.

Original name Edited name METS output
i & tem i___tem Original name=”%transferDirectory%objects/i & tem.png”; new name=”%transferDirectory%objects/i___tem.png”
Česká republika.png Ceska_republika.png Original name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Česká republika.png”; new name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Ceska_republika.png”
Éireann Eireann Original name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Éireann.png”; new name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Eireann.png”
España Espana Original name=”%transferDirectory%objects/España.png”; new name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Espana.png”
Росси́я Rossiia Original name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Росси́я.png”; new name=”%transferDirectory%objects/Rossiia.png”

Additional information can be found in the complete PREMIS event:

<mets:mdWrap MDTYPE="PREMIS:EVENT">
  <mets:xmlData>
    <premis:event xmlns:premis="info:lc/xmlns/premis-v2" xsi:schemaLocation="info:lc/xmlns/premis-v2 http://www.loc.gov/standards/premis/v2/premis-v2-2.xsd" version="2.2">
      <premis:eventIdentifier>
        <premis:eventIdentifierType>UUID</premis:eventIdentifierType>
        <premis:eventIdentifierValue>ef7ef8b8-c363-4dfe-9b67-4100d1bfa7f2</premis:eventIdentifierValue>
      </premis:eventIdentifier>
      <premis:eventType>filename change</premis:eventType>
      <premis:eventDateTime>2019-01-17T22:07:17+00:00</premis:eventDateTime>
      <premis:eventDetail>prohibited characters removed:program="change_names"; version="1.10.d0ccb7d7661cf35c769dcc0846d8f087998af713"</premis:eventDetail>
      <premis:eventOutcomeInformation>
        <premis:eventOutcome></premis:eventOutcome>
        <premis:eventOutcomeDetail>
          <premis:eventOutcomeDetailNote>Original name="%transferDirectory%objects/Росси́я.png"; new name="%transferDirectory%objects/Rossiia.png"</premis:eventOutcomeDetailNote>
        </premis:eventOutcomeDetail>
      </premis:eventOutcomeInformation>
      <premis:linkingAgentIdentifier>
        <premis:linkingAgentIdentifierType>preservation system</premis:linkingAgentIdentifierType>
        <premis:linkingAgentIdentifierValue>Archivematica-1.7</premis:linkingAgentIdentifierValue>
      </premis:linkingAgentIdentifier>
      <premis:linkingAgentIdentifier>
        <premis:linkingAgentIdentifierType>repository code</premis:linkingAgentIdentifierType>
        <premis:linkingAgentIdentifierValue></premis:linkingAgentIdentifierValue>
      </premis:linkingAgentIdentifier>
    </premis:event>
  </mets:xmlData>
</mets:mdWrap>

This strategy for addressing character limitations within the tools bundled by Archivematica can result in significant changes to file and directory names. In order to provide easy access to a record of the changes, the Archivematica AIP contains log files that show the original name alongside the changed name. There are two log files:

  • The log file for name changes that happen during Transfer is located in the AIP at data/logs/transfers/my-transfer-name/logs/filenameChanges.log
  • The log file for name changes that happen during Ingest is located in the AIP at data/logs/filenameChanges.log

These logs contain a plaintext rendering of the information embedded within the PREMIS event.

Changed name: %transferDirectory%objects/Росси́я.png  ->  %transferDirectory%objects/Rossiia.png
Changed name: %transferDirectory%objects/Éireann.png  ->  %transferDirectory%objects/Eireann.png
Changed name: %transferDirectory%objects/f & ile.png  ->  %transferDirectory%objects/f___ile.png
Changed name: %transferDirectory%objects/Česká republika.ong  ->  %transferDirectory%objects/Ceska_republika.ong
Changed name: %transferDirectory%objects/Ísland.png  ->  %transferDirectory%objects/Island.png
Changed name: %transferDirectory%objects/España.png  ->  %transferDirectory%objects/Espana.png

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