File Content Extraction 26.1
Filter SDK C Programming Guide

# 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.

Some documents contain metadata that is intended to be interpreted only by the parsing application, not the end user. This might be information like the number of records within the document, or the algorithm used to encrypt contents. File Content Extraction uses this metadata internally to interpret the file structure, but will only output metadata that is likely to be useful for the end user.

## Access Metadata using the C API

You can access document metadata using the Filter interface function fpGetMetadataList().

You can access subfile metadata using the Extract interface function fpGetSubFileMetadataList().

These functions have different signatures, but both output a KVMetadataList struct, so the output from both functions can be used in the same way.

File Content Extraction uses the structures KVMetadataList and KVMetadataElement to store metadata.

- The KVMetadataList structure represents a list of KVMetadataElement objects, allowing you to iterate over them. The order of elements within the list is not significant and may change in the future.
- The KVMetadataElement structure represents one metadata field. It contains a string representation of the field’s key, and the field’s value stored in an appropriate type.

## Backwards Compatibility

To help you migrate from `fpGetOLESummaryInfo` to `fpGetMetadataList`, File Content Extraction reproduces the output of `fpGetOLESummaryInfo` in the output of `fpGetMetadataList`. For each `KVSummaryInfoEx` object `sumInfo` that would be output by `fpGetOLESummaryInfo`, the output of `fpGetMetadataList` will contain a KVMetadataElement object `metaElem` such that `metaElem.pKey` contains the name in `sumInfo.pcType`, and and `metaElem.pValue` contains the value represented by `sumInfo.data`. Where File Content Extraction can standardize the field represented by `sumInfo`, the output of `fpGetMetadataList` also contains that standardized field.

To help you migrate from fpGetSubFileMetaData() to fpGetSubFileMetadataList(), File Content Extraction reproduces the `default` and `all` metadata sets output by fpGetSubFileMetaData() in the output of fpGetSubFileMetadataList(). The `default` metadata set is output by fpGetSubFileMetaData() when the `metaNameCount` member of the `KVGetSubFileMetaArgRec` argument is set to 0, and the `all` metadata set is output when `metaNameCount` is set to -1. For each valid `KVMetadataElem` object `metaElemOld` in the `default` and `all` output of `fpGetSubFileMetaData`, the output of fpGetSubFileMetadataList() will contain a KVMetadataElement object `metaElemNew` such that `metaElemNew.pKey` contains the name in `metaElemOld.strType`, and `metaElemNew.pValue` contains the value represented by `metaElemOld.data`. Where File Content Extraction can standardize the field represented by `metaElemOld`, the output of `fpGetMetadataList` also contains that standardized field.

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Version 26.1 | Last updated January 2026

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Product: File Content Extraction 26.1

Topic Title: What is Metadata?