Metadata Collection Resource

Use the Metadata Collection resource (metadata) to manage folder and file metadata. A metadata collection is a simple way of managing custom metadata fields that you can then use to store and retrieve metadata values for individual folders and files.

Within a collection, you can create one or more fields. To assign values to the fields in a metadata collection, you must first assign the collection to a particular folder or file. You can assign a collection to one or more folders or files, and any folder or file can have one or more collections assigned to it.

With a collection, you can add or remove fields and manage the group of fields as a whole. When you assign a collection to a folder or file, you effectively add the fields to the metadata for the folder or file. The values you assign to the fields are stored and retrieved as part of the metadata for the folder or file itself.

Metadata Inheritance

Custom metadata fields that you create and manage in a collection follow the same rules of inheritance that standard metadata fields follow. Metadata fields assigned to a folder are available to all folders and files in the hierarchy beneath that folder. Similarly, the values you assign to those fields are inherited by all folders and files nested beneath that folder unless explicitly defined for a nested folder or file. Metadata values specified for a folder or file replace the inherited value for that folder and, by the same rules of inheritance, for any folders or files in the hierarchy nested beneath that folder.

Field References

When setting or removing field values within a collections, there are two ways to reference collections and fields.

You can reference the collection and field names independently. Field references on the same service call use the specified collection implicitly:

/metadata?collection={collection name}&{field name}={field value}[&{field name}={field value}]

Alternatively, you can specify the collection and field name with each field reference:

/metadata?{collection name}.{field name}={field value}[&{collection name}.{field name}={field value}]

Metadata Collection APIs

For REST endpoints and API descriptions, see Metadata Collection.