Strategy

An advanced feature is the use of the XML attribute strategy on the top level metadata field for example Title, Description, Authors, RightsOwner.

We have three possible values for the attribute

KEEP: Don't overwrite the old value for this field if it was not empty
OVERWRITE:
- Overwrite the old value for this field
- This is the default strategy for simple fields which are fields that contain a textual value such as Title and Description.
MERGE:
- Only applicable to complex fields which are fields that contain sub fields, such as Authors, Keywords and Categories.
- Merge the new sub fields with the existing sub fields
- This is the default strategy for complex fields

Examples

Sidecar XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaHAVEN_external_metadata>
   <title strategy="OVERWRITE">Big Buck Bunny, Sunflower version</title>
   <description strategy="KEEP">The best movie ever!</description>
   <MDProperties>
      <Authors type="list" strategy="MERGE">
         <auteur>Blender Foundation 2008</auteur>
      </Authors>
      <RightsOwner type="KEEP">SoundHandler</RightsOwner>
   </MDProperties>
</MediaHAVEN_external_metadata>

Existing Metadata

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaHAVEN_external_metadata>
   <title>Big Buck Bunny</title>    
   <MDProperties>
      <Authors type="list">
         <auteur>Janus Bager Kristensen 2013</auteur>
      </Authors>
      <RightsOwner>Janus Kristensen</RightsOwner>
   </MDProperties>
</MediaHAVEN_external_metadata>

Resulting Metadata

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<MediaHAVEN_external_metadata>
   <title>Big Buck Bunny, Sunflower version</title>
   <description>The best movie ever!</description>    
   <MDProperties>
      <Authors type="list">
         <auteur>Blender Foundation 2008</auteur>
         <auteur>Janus Bager Kristensen 2013</auteur>
      </Authors>
      <RightsOwner>Janus Kristensen</RightsOwner>
   </MDProperties>
</MediaHAVEN_external_metadata>