Metadata

Metadata can be provided for a number of declarations, describing the purpose of the declarations. Metadata attributes can be defined for the pattern module as a whole, and for individual patterns and identify tables in the module. Metadata declarations take the form:

metadata
  name := value1, value2, ...;
  ...
end metadata;

When pattern modules are loaded into BMC Atrium Discovery, the metadata attributes are stored along with the pattern modules in the data store, allowing them to be searched for and used in reports. There is not a fixed set of metadata attributes - any attributes can be set as appropriate for the pattern. However, the following attributes are recommended for all patterns and pattern modules:

Name	Description	Expected?
products	The names of the product(s) identified by the pattern	expected
product_synonyms	Other names for the product(s)	optional
known_versions	Versions of the product(s) that are known to exist	optional
publishers	The publisher(s) or the product(s) at the time of pattern creation	expected
publisher_synonyms	Other names the publishers are known by	optional
oem_publishers	Any publishers that OEM the product(s)	optional
prior_publishers	Publishers previously related to the product(s), in case the product or publisher has been bought	optional
product_families	Publisher specific product families the product(s) belong to	optional
product_editions	If the product is available in different editions, which ones the pattern covers	optional
categories	The software categories the product is in	expected
urls	Web URLs of relevance	optional
tkn_identity	For patterns from the Technology Knowledge Network, the identity in the TKN database	expected

Note that all of the attributes are lists of strings (in TPL 1.4, numbers are also permitted) since it is possible for one single pattern or pattern module to be relevant to a number of different products.
Attributes are tagged as "expected" if well-written patterns would be expected to have them. All patterns available through TKN will have all of the expected attributes.

BMC Software

Metadata