Naming scheme
🚧 Sprout is still in active development and evolving quickly, so the documentation and functionality may not work as described and could undergo substantial changes 🚧
This document describes a general naming scheme for Sprout that is guided by our style guide as well as by the Frictionless Framework and Data Package structure. This naming scheme only applies to data objects, functions, URLs, API endpoints, and command line interfaces that are exposed to or associated with user-facing content. It does not apply to internal content; see the style guide for details on naming internal (developer-facing) content.
We’ll compose names based on the objects we and our users interact with as well as the actions taken on those objects. Following along with the Frictionless Data Package terminology, we simplify “data package” to “package” and “data resource” to “resource”. We use the words “property” or “properties” to describe package and resource metadata contained in the datapackage.json file that follows the Frictionless Data specification.
While we use the term “properties” to mean anything related to the metadata contained within the datapackage.json file, the Frictionless Data Package specification uses the term “descriptor” to describe metadata as the structure of the properties (the metadata as a whole) and as the file itself. Since we mainly create, modify, or delete properties not descriptors and since we want to minimize using and introducing additional terms, for simplicity we use “properties” to refer to the content of the datapackage.json file rather than its structure. We may also occasionally use “properties” to refer to the file itself.
Objects
| Object | Description |
|---|---|
| package(s) | A data package that contains a collection of related data resources and properties. |
| resource(s) | A single data file within a package, along with its properties and associated raw data files. |
| properties or property | Metadata about a package or resource. |
| file structure or structure | The file and folder structure of a package. |
| path | A file path listing the location of folders or files that Sprout interacts with. |
| data | The data file within a resource. Within Sprout, this includes the table in the database, the Parquet file, as well as raw files. |
| identifier | A unique identifier for a package or resource, denoted as id. |
| File or folder | Description |
|---|---|
| packages | The folder that contains all packages. |
| resources | The folder that contains all resource files in a package. |
| raw | The folder that contains raw data files for a data resource. |
| raw data file | A compressed raw data file format, such as a .zip, .gzip, or .tar.gz file. |
| JSON | The main way we save and pass information around on the package’s or resource’s properties. |
| Parquet | A columnar, efficient storage file format that we use to save data within a resource. |
| SQLite | A relational database file format that we use to contain all data resources in a package. |
Actions
| Action | Description |
|---|---|
| create | Create a new object. |
| construct | Construct or reconstruct a data file (like the Parquet file). |
| view | View details about an object. |
| list | List basic details about many objects. |
| edit | Edit an object, specifically the properties object. |
| add | Add another object to an existing object, specifically adding data to a resource. |
| write | Write an object to a file. |
| copy | Copy a file from one location to another. |
| delete | Permanently delete an object. |
| extract | Extract specific information from an object, specifically the properties from a data file. |