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Format

SIARD (Software-Independent Archiving of Relational Databases)

Summary

Name
SIARD (Software-Independent Archiving of Relational Databases)
Version
2.0
Identifiers
PUID: fmt/995
Format type
Database
Disclosure
Full
Description
Software-Independent Archiving of Relational Databases is a format for storing content of relational databases in files for long-term preservation e.g. in archives. The format was developed by the Swiss Federal Archives. It is an open standard and is supported by the SIARD software of the Swiss Federal Archives. SIARD format is a ZIP file (based on the 64 bit extension of the ZIP format introduced by PkWare Inc. with version 4.5 of the ZIP format definition in order to avoid size limitations which are unrealistic for databases). The ZIP file contains an XML file describing the database structure and metadata as well as a collection of XML files describing the table content (database primary data) as well as, optionally, some text files and some binary files representing database large objects (BLOBs and CLOBs).
Format encoding
Binary
File extensions
siard
Submitted by
Keep Solutions / Keep Solutions
Developed by
Swiss Federal Archives / Swiss Federal Archives
Supported by
Swiss Federal Archives / Swiss Federal Archives

Relationships

Is previous version of

Container signatures

Type: ZIP

31010 - SIARD 2.0

File path
header/metadata.xml

Byte sequence reference

BOFoffset

Sub sequences
Min Frag Length
Position
1
Sub sequence min offset
50
Sub sequence max offset
256
Sequence
'xmlns="http://www.bar.admin.ch/xmlns/siard/2.0/metadata.xsd"'

Changelog

  • V90

    Release date
    30 March 2017
    • Updated

      SIARD (Software-Independent Archiving of Relational Databases) 2.0: Corrected 'Developed by' and 'Supported by' to Swiss Federal Archives. Error identified by KEEP SOLUTIONS.

  • V89

    Release date
    8 March 2017
    • Added format

      SIARD (Software-Independent Archiving of Relational Databases) v2: Full entry added. Submitted by KEEP SOLUTIONS

    • Added signature

      SIARD (Software-Independent Archiving of Relational Databases) v2: Added container signature. Submitted by KEEP SOLUTIONS