Loading specification#

An important part of the deposit specifications is the loading procedure where a deposit is ingested into the Software Heritage Archive (SWH) using the deposit loader and the complete process of software artifacts creation in the archive.

Deposit Loading#

The swh.loader.package.deposit module is able to inject zipfile/tarball’s content in SWH with its metadata.

The loading of the deposit will use the deposit’s associated data:

the metadata
the archive file(s)

Artifacts creation#

Deposit to artifacts mapping#

This is a global view of the deposit ingestion

swh artifact	representation in deposit
origin	https://hal.inria.fr/hal-id
raw_extrinsic_metadata	aggregated metadata
snapshot	reception of all occurrences (branches)
branches	master & tags for releases (not yet implemented)
release	(optional) synthetic release created from metadata (not yet implemented)
revision	synthetic revision pointing to the directory (see below)
directory	root directory of the expanded submitted tarball

Origin artifact#

If the <swh:create_origin> is missing, we create an origin URL by concatenating the client’s provider_url and the value of the Slug header of the initial POST request of the deposit (or a randomly generated slug if it is missing).

For examples:

$ http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/origin/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795/get/

would result in:

{
    "url": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795",
    "origin_visits_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/origin/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795/visits/",
    "metadata_authorities_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/swhid/swh:1:ori:0094225e66277f3b2de66155b3cb30ca25f12565/authorities/"
}

Visits#

We identify with a visit each deposit push of the same origin. Here in the example below, two snapshots are identified by two different visits.

For examples:

$ http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/origin/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795/visits/

would result in:

[
    {
        "date": "2023-03-29T12:12:08.960810+00:00",
        "metadata": {},
        "origin": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795",
        "origin_visit_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/origin/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795/visit/2/",
        "snapshot": "e59379a4f88c297066e964703893c23b08264ec8",
        "snapshot_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/snapshot/e59379a4f88c297066e964703893c23b08264ec8/",
        "status": "full",
        "type": "deposit",
        "visit": 2
    },
    {
        "date": "2019-01-10T12:30:26.326411+00:00",
        "metadata": {},
        "origin": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795",
        "origin_visit_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/origin/https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795/visit/1/",
        "snapshot": "fd1b8fc1bdd3ebeac913eb6dd377a646a3149747",
        "snapshot_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/snapshot/fd1b8fc1bdd3ebeac913eb6dd377a646a3149747/",
        "status": "full",
        "type": "deposit",
        "visit": 1
    }
]

Snapshot artifact#

The snapshot represents one deposit push. The HEAD branch points to a synthetic revision.

For example:

$ http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/snapshot/e59379a4f88c297066e964703893c23b08264ec8/

would result in:

{
    "branches": {
        "HEAD": {
            "target": "fc8e44c5bb3fabe81e5ebe46ac013a2510271616",
            "target_type": "release",
            "target_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/release/fc8e44c5bb3fabe81e5ebe46ac013a2510271616/"
        }
    },
    "id": "e59379a4f88c297066e964703893c23b08264ec8",
    "next_branch": null
}

Note that previous versions of the deposit-loader created a release instead of a revision. For example:

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/snapshot/fd1b8fc1bdd3ebeac913eb6dd377a646a3149747/

resulted in:

{
    "branches": {
        "master": {
            "target": "66ff08f00acc06131fe610be0f9878a6c78bfe44",
            "target_type": "revision",
            "target_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/revision/66ff08f00acc06131fe610be0f9878a6c78bfe44/"
        }
    },
    "id": "fd1b8fc1bdd3ebeac913eb6dd377a646a3149747",
    "next_branch": null
}

Even older versions named the branch master instead of HEAD, and created release branches (pointing to revisions) under certain conditions.

Release artifact#

The content is deposited with a set of descriptive metadata in the CodeMeta vocabulary. The following CodeMeta terms implies that the artifact is a release:

releaseNotes
softwareVersion

If present, a release artifact will be created with the mapping below:

SWH release field	Description	CodeMeta term	Fallback value
target	directory containing all metadata	X	X
target_type	directory	X	X
name	release or tag name (mandatory)	softwareVersion	X
message	message associated with release	releaseNotes	X
date	release date = publication date	datePublished	deposit_date
author	deposit client	author	X

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/release/fc8e44c5bb3fabe81e5ebe46ac013a2510271616/

{
    "author": {
        "email": "robot@softwareheritage.org",
        "fullname": "Software Heritage",
        "name": "Software Heritage"
    },
    "date": "2021-01-01T00:00:00+00:00",
    "id": "fc8e44c5bb3fabe81e5ebe46ac013a2510271616",
    "message": "hal: Deposit 2753 in collection hal\n\n- Replace qmake with CMake.- Fix bugs.- Move repository.\n",
    "name": "HEAD",
    "synthetic": true,
    "target": "7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b",
    "target_type": "directory",
    "target_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/directory/7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b/"
}

Revision artifact#

Note

Revision artifacts are no longer created by the deposit.

The metadata sent with the deposit is stored outside the revision, and does not affect the hash computation. It contains the same fields as any revision object; in particular:

SWH revision field	Description
message	synthetic message, containing the name of the deposit client and an internal identifier of the deposit. For example: `hal: Deposit 817 in collection hal`
author	synthetic author (SWH itself, for now)
committer	same as the author (for now)
date	see below
committer_date	see below

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/revision/66ff08f00acc06131fe610be0f9878a6c78bfe44/

{
    "author": {
        "email": "robot@softwareheritage.org",
        "fullname": "Software Heritage",
        "name": "Software Heritage"
    },
    "committer": {
        "email": "robot@softwareheritage.org",
        "fullname": "Software Heritage",
        "name": "Software Heritage"
    },
    "committer_date": "2019-01-10T12:27:59.639536+00:00",
    "date": "2019-01-10T12:27:59.639536+00:00",
    "directory": "70c73de7d406938315d6cf30bf87bb9eb480017e",
    "directory_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/directory/70c73de7d406938315d6cf30bf87bb9eb480017e/",
    "extra_headers": [],
    "history_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/revision/66ff08f00acc06131fe610be0f9878a6c78bfe44/log/",
    "id": "66ff08f00acc06131fe610be0f9878a6c78bfe44",
    "merge": false,
    "message": "hal: Deposit 225 in collection hal",
    "metadata": {
        "@xmlns": "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom",
        "@xmlns:codemeta": "https://doi.org/10.5063/SCHEMA/CODEMETA-2.0",
        "author": {
            "email": "hal@ccsd.cnrs.fr",
            "name": "HAL"
        },
        "client": "hal",
        "codemeta:applicationCategory": "sdu.ocean",
        "codemeta:author": {
            "codemeta:affiliation": "LaMP",
            "codemeta:name": "D. Picard"
        },
        "codemeta:codeRepository": "https://forge.clermont-universite.fr/git/libszdist",
        "codemeta:dateCreated": "2018-09-28T16:58:05+02:00",
        "codemeta:description": "libszdist is a C++ library and command line tools that implement the algorithm used to process the data of instruments called SMPS/DMPS. These instruments measure the size distribution of aerosol particles. The algorithm is known as ''inversion''.",
        "codemeta:developmentStatus": "Actif",
        "codemeta:keywords": "SMPS,DMPS,Aerosol Size Distribution",
        "codemeta:license": {
            "codemeta:name": "GNU GPLv3"
        },
        "codemeta:name": "libszdist",
        "codemeta:operatingSystem": [
            "Linux",
            "Windows",
            "Mac OS X",
            "ARM"
        ],
        "codemeta:programmingLanguage": "C++",
        "codemeta:runtimePlatform": [
            "qmake",
            "gcc"
        ],
        "codemeta:softwareVersion": "v.0.10.4",
        "codemeta:url": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795",
        "codemeta:version": "1",
        "committer": "David Picard",
        "external_identifier": "hal-01883795",
        "id": "hal-01883795"
    },
    "parents": [],
    "synthetic": true,
    "type": "tar",
    "url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/revision/66ff08f00acc06131fe610be0f9878a6c78bfe44/"
}

Note that the metadata field is deprecated. The “extrinsic metadata” endpoints described below should be used instead.

The date mapping#

A deposit may contain 4 different dates concerning the software artifacts.

The deposit’s revision will reflect the most accurate point in time available. Here are all dates that can be available in a deposit:

dates	location	Description
reception_date	On SWORD reception (automatic)	the deposit was received at this ts
complete_date	On SWH ingestion (automatic)	the ingestion was completed by SWH at this ts
dateCreated	metadata in codeMeta (optional)	the software artifact was created at this ts
datePublished	metadata in codeMeta (optional)	the software was published (contributed in HAL)

A visit targeting a snapshot contains one date:

SWH visit field	Description	value
date	the origin pushed the deposit at this date	reception_date

A revision contains two dates:

SWH revision field	Description	CodeMeta term	Fallback value
date	date of software artifact modification	dateCreated	reception_date
committer_date	date of the commit in VCS	datePublished	reception_date

A release contains one date:

SWH release field	Description	CodeMeta term	Fallback value
date	release date = publication date	datePublished	reception_date

Directory artifact#

The directory artifact is the archive(s)’ raw content deposited.

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/directory/7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b/

[
    {
        "checksums": {
            "sha1": "cadfc0e77c0119a025a5ed45d07f71df4071f645",
            "sha1_git": "b89214f14acaca84efb65ff6542cb5d790b6ac5c",
            "sha256": "47c165ad20425a13f65ebd9db61447363bb9cf3ce0b0fa4418d9cfc951f157e3"
        },
        "dir_id": "7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b",
        "length": 150,
        "name": ".gitignore",
        "perms": 33188,
        "status": "visible",
        "target": "b89214f14acaca84efb65ff6542cb5d790b6ac5c",
        "target_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/content/sha1_git:b89214f14acaca84efb65ff6542cb5d790b6ac5c/",
        "type": "file"
    },
    {
        "checksums": {
            "sha1": "816fde05704e5b7c8a744044949b9f7944702993",
            "sha1_git": "de6f1f373a44be2b16232b2ff9744f31fe7e3715",
            "sha256": "09585c721573beadc56a98754745f9381c15626f6471b7da18475366e4e8f2cb"
        },
        "dir_id": "7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b",
        "length": 51,
        "name": "AUTHORS",
        "perms": 33188,
        "status": "visible",
        "target": "de6f1f373a44be2b16232b2ff9744f31fe7e3715",
        "target_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/content/sha1_git:de6f1f373a44be2b16232b2ff9744f31fe7e3715/",
        "type": "file"
    }
]

Questions raised concerning loading#

A deposit has one origin, yet an origin can have multiple deposits?

No, an origin can have multiple requests for the same deposit. Which should end up in one single deposit (when the client pushes its final request saying deposit ‘done’ through the header In-Progress).

Only update of existing ‘partial’ deposit is permitted. Other than that, the deposit ‘update’ operation.

To create a new version of a software (already deposited), the client must prior to this create a new deposit.

Illustration First deposit loading:

HAL’s deposit 01535619 = SWH’s deposit 01535619-1

+ 1 origin with url:https://hal.inria.fr/medihal-01535619

+ 1 synthetic revision

+ 1 directory

HAL’s update on deposit 01535619 = SWH’s deposit 01535619-2

(*with HAL updates can only be on the metadata and a new version is required if the content changes)

+ 1 origin with url:https://hal.inria.fr/medihal-01535619

+ new synthetic revision (with new metadata)

+ same directory

HAL’s deposit 01535619-v2 = SWH’s deposit 01535619-v2-1

+ same origin

+ new revision

+ new directory

Scheduling loading#

All archive and metadata deposit requests should be aggregated before loading.

The loading should be scheduled via the scheduler’s api.

Only deposited deposit are concerned by the loading.

When the loading is done and successful, the deposit entry is updated:

status is updated to done

swh-id is populated with the resulting SWHID

complete_date is updated to the loading’s finished time

When the loading has failed, the deposit entry is updated:

status is updated to failed
swh-id and complete_data remains as is

Note: As a further improvement, we may prefer having a retry policy with graceful delays for further scheduling.

Metadata loading#

the metadata received with the deposit are kept in a dedicated table raw_extrinsic_metadata, distinct from the revision and origin tables.
authority is computed from the deposit client information, and fetcher is the deposit loader.

They can be queried using the directory SWHID.

First, we need to get the list of authorities which published metadata on this directory:

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/swhid/swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b/authorities/

[
    {
        "metadata_list_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/swhid/swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b/?authority=deposit_client%20https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/",
        "type": "deposit_client",
        "url": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/"
    },
    {
        "metadata_list_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/swhid/swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b/?authority=registry%20https://softwareheritage.org/",
        "type": "registry",
        "url": "https://softwareheritage.org/"
    }
]

The former is HAL, the latter is Software Heritage itself (to provide attestation of tarball checksums). We can get the list of metadata provided by HAL:

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/swhid/swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b/\?authority\=deposit_client%20https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/

[
    {
        "authority": {
            "type": "deposit_client",
            "url": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/"
        },
        "discovery_date": "2023-03-29T12:11:53+00:00",
        "fetcher": {
            "name": "swh-deposit",
            "version": "1.1.0"
        },
        "format": "sword-v2-atom-codemeta-v2",
        "metadata_url": "https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/get/c65992f8f3efe416ccf2666f8ff09753ea94377d/?filename=swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b_metadata",
        "origin": "https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795",
        "release": "swh:1:rel:fc8e44c5bb3fabe81e5ebe46ac013a2510271616",
        "target": "swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b"
    }
]

and finally, we got the URL to the metadata blob itself:

http -pb https://archive.softwareheritage.org/api/1/raw-extrinsic-metadata/get/c65992f8f3efe416ccf2666f8ff09753ea94377d/\?filename\=swh:1:dir:7057a716afab8ca80728aa7c6c2cc4bd03b0f45b_metadata

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<entry xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:codemeta="https://doi.org/10.5063/SCHEMA/CODEMETA-2.0" xmlns:schema="http://schema.org/" xmlns:swh="https://www.softwareheritage.org/schema/2018/deposit">
  <id>hal-01883795</id>
  <swh:deposit>
    <swh:create_origin>
      <swh:origin url="https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795"/>
    </swh:create_origin>
    <swh:metadata-provenance>
      <schema:url>https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01883795</schema:url>
    </swh:metadata-provenance>
  </swh:deposit>
  <author>
    <name>HAL</name>
    <email>hal@ccsd.cnrs.fr</email>
  </author>
  <codemeta:name>libszdist</codemeta:name>
  <codemeta:description>libszdist is a C++ library and command line tools that implement the algorithm used to process the data of instruments called SMPS/DMPS. These instruments measure the size distribution of aerosol particles. The algorithm is known as ''inversion''.</codemeta:description>
  <codemeta:dateCreated>2021-01-01</codemeta:dateCreated>
  <codemeta:datePublished>2023-03-16</codemeta:datePublished>
  <codemeta:license>
    <codemeta:name>GNU GPLv3</codemeta:name>
  </codemeta:license>
  <schema:identifier>
    <codemeta:type>schema:PropertyValue</codemeta:type>
    <schema:propertyID>HAL-ID</schema:propertyID>
    <schema:value>hal-01883795</schema:value>
  </schema:identifier>
  <codemeta:applicationCategory>sdu.ocean</codemeta:applicationCategory>
  <codemeta:keywords>SMPS,DMPS,Aerosol Size Distribution,MPSS</codemeta:keywords>
  <codemeta:institution>CNRS</codemeta:institution>
  <codemeta:codeRepository>https://forge.clermont-universite.fr/git/libszdist</codemeta:codeRepository>
  <codemeta:relatedLink>https://gitlab.in2p3.fr/david.picard/libszdist</codemeta:relatedLink>
  <codemeta:programmingLanguage>C++</codemeta:programmingLanguage>
  <codemeta:runtimePlatform>gcc</codemeta:runtimePlatform>
  <codemeta:runtimePlatform>CMake</codemeta:runtimePlatform>
  <codemeta:operatingSystem>Linux</codemeta:operatingSystem>
  <codemeta:operatingSystem>Windows</codemeta:operatingSystem>
  <codemeta:operatingSystem>Mac OS X</codemeta:operatingSystem>
  <codemeta:operatingSystem>ARM</codemeta:operatingSystem>
  <codemeta:operatingSystem>PC</codemeta:operatingSystem>
  <codemeta:version>2</codemeta:version>
  <codemeta:softwareVersion>v.0.11.1</codemeta:softwareVersion>
  <codemeta:dateModified>2023-03-24</codemeta:dateModified>
  <codemeta:releaseNotes>- Replace qmake with CMake.- Fix bugs.- Move repository.</codemeta:releaseNotes>
  <codemeta:developmentStatus>Actif</codemeta:developmentStatus>
  <codemeta:author>
    <codemeta:name>D. Picard</codemeta:name>
    <codemeta:affiliation>LPC</codemeta:affiliation>
    <codemeta:affiliation>LaMP</codemeta:affiliation>
  </codemeta:author>
  <codemeta:contributor>
    <codemeta:name>David PICARD</codemeta:name>
  </codemeta:contributor>
</entry>

which is the exact document provided by HAL when uploading the deposit.