FAQ

Can I use pycsw within my WSGI application?

Yes. pycsw can be deployed as both via traditional CGI or WSGI. You can also integrate pycsw via Django views or Pylons controllers.

How do I export my repository?

Use the pycsw-admin.py utility to dump the records as XML documents to a directory:

$ pycsw-admin.py -c export_records -f default.cfg -p /path/to/output_dir

How do I add a custom metadata format?

pycsw provides a plugin framework in which you can implement a custom profile (see Profile Plugins)

How can I catalogue ‘sets’ of metadata?

Create a ‘parent’ metadata record from which all relevant metadata records (imagery, features) derive from via the same dc:source element of Dublin Core or apiso:parentIdentifier element of ISO 19139:2007. Then, do a GetRecords request, filtering on the identifier of the parent metadata record. Sample request:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
<csw:GetRecords xmlns:csw="http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw/2.0.2" xmlns:ogc="http://www.opengis.net/ogc" service="CSW" version="2.0.2" resultType="results" startPosition="1" maxRecords="5" outputFormat="application/xml" outputSchema="http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw/2.0.2" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw/2.0.2 http://schemas.opengis.net/csw/2.0.2/CSW-discovery.xsd" xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml" xmlns:gmd="http://www.isotc211.org/2005/gmd" xmlns:apiso="http://www.opengis.net/cat/csw/apiso/1.0">
  <csw:Query typeNames="csw:Record">
    <csw:ElementSetName>brief</csw:ElementSetName>
    <csw:Constraint version="1.1.0">
      <ogc:Filter>
        <ogc:And>
          <ogc:PropertyIsEqualTo>
            <ogc:PropertyName>apiso:parentIdentifier</ogc:PropertyName>
            <ogc:PropertyName>$identifier</ogc:PropertyName>
          </ogc:PropertyIsEqualTo>
          <ogc:BBOX>
            <ogc:PropertyName>ows:BoundingBox</ogc:PropertyName>
            <gml:Envelope>
              <gml:lowerCorner>47 -5</gml:lowerCorner>
              <gml:upperCorner>55 20</gml:upperCorner>
            </gml:Envelope>
          </ogc:BBOX>
        </ogc:And>
      </ogc:Filter>
    </csw:Constraint>
  </csw:Query>
</csw:GetRecords>

The above query will search for all metadata records of the same apiso:parentIdentifier (identified by $identifier) within a given area of interest. The equivalent query can be done against dc:source with the same design pattern.