KeyView 24.1

# What is Metadata?

Documents may contain information about the document itself: we call this metadata. For instance, a raster image file contains metadata recording the image's width and height; a word processing document may contain metadata recording the document's author and title. Metadata can be represented by key-value pairs. For instance, a document's title can be represented as the key "Title" and the value "Annual Report". We refer to a single metadata key-value pair as a metadata field.

Containers (documents with subfiles) can contain metadata about their subfiles. For instance, a Personal Folders (`.pst`) file is a container that can have multiple email messages as subfiles. A PST file may contain metadata, including the "To" and "From" fields of these subfiles.

## Access Metadata using the Java API

After specifying the source document by calling the `setInputSource()` method, you can access document metadata using the method `getMetadata()` on your `Filter` object.

You can access subfile metadata using the method `extGetSubFileMetadataList()` on your `Filter` object.

These methods both output a `MetadataList` object, so the output from both functions can be used in the same way.

KeyView uses `MetadataList` and `MetadataElement` objects to represent metadata.

- A `MetadataList` object represents a list of `MetadataElement` objects, allowing you to iterate over them. The order of elements within the list is not significant and may change in the future.
- A `MetadataElement` object represents one metadata field.

## Mail Metadata

The metadata for an e-mail message (the header fields such as "To", "CC", "Subject", and so on) are typically stored in the mail container (such as an MSG or EML file). To access this metadata you can call the function `extGetSubFileMetadataList()`.

The message body and any attachments are considered by KeyView as subfiles of the container. When you extract the message body, KeyView includes the header fields (by default). If you do not want to include this information, call the method `setExcludeMailHeader(true)` on your `ExtSubFileExtractConfig` object, before you call `extExtractSubFile()`. You might want to do this if you have already accessed the metadata and do not want to process it again.

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Version 24.1 | Last updated December 2023

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Product: IDOL KeyView 24.1

Topic Title: What is Metadata?