Peter B.What's your opinion on using the default unix "file" tool vs DROID to roughly-and-quicky-identify mixed data sets?
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#Digital ⚓️ #Vagabond 🦈@p3ter I like it because it's a bit easier to use, or I compromise and use Siegfried because of Siegfried's structured output.
If you're not going to persist the identifiers, or need to conform to a digital preservation standard and use the PUID then file good, quick and easy.
RE: processing you can maybe check out https://kellyjonbrazil.github.io/jc/ which allows you to pip file output to json, e.g. file * | jc --file
Which helps make it a bit easier to process by machine.
@beet_keeper to clarify what you mean:
"you like *it*" means droid or file?
(Haven't used Siegfried yet. Will try. This one, right? https://github.com/richardlehane/siegfried)
I've had quite some cases with AV files where file gets it, but DROID doesn't...
@p3ter yeah, file is good. You have to use all the tools. If DROID doesn’t get it Siegfried probably won’t either although it has a few more methods.
@p3ter do you use MediaInfo for AV identification too? (I've always thought was was more likely to be the most reliable but I guess doesn't really give much on non-AV/heterogeneous collections)
@beet_keeper I use MediaInfo and `file` and exiftool all the time.
Therefore I've never had any reason to use DROID or Siegfried yet: That's why I was asking 😉
Thorsted@p3ter @beet_keeper They are not mutually exclusive. The PRONOM registry will have signatures that file and other tools are not aware of yet.
> I've never had any reason to use DROID or Siegfried yet: That's why I was asking
Good questions, and I think adding to Tyler's point, I think it's important to pluralize tooling where there are gaps and be comfortable with multiple tools contributing to a single metadata record.
What's nice about the PRONOM model, and maybe other models in future (Wikibase) is the decentralization of knowledge about formats through it's IDs/URIs.
At least the theory seems promising to reduce how much we have to duplicate and maintain across records.
PRONOM based tools may never be as precise as other methods though and you may simply be more comfortable in a context where you record information that is more granular from tools that parse.
The calculus is a little different in institutions live govt where there are fewer technical users and so PRONOM based systems work quite well reducing the technical barrier.
@beet_keeper Indeed! Those were exactly the things I was looking for.