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Metadata

Basics

All metadata can be retrieved using the query string below. Learn about the SDMX standard and SDMX metadata here.

protocol://wsEntryPoint/resource/agencyID/resourceID/version?detail=value&references=value

Syntax definition

Protocol
The web service use only the https protocol.
wsEntryPoint
The web service entry point is available at the following location: 
data-api.ecb.europa.eu/service/
resource
The following resources (also known as artefacts) are supported by the web service, though not all of them are currently used: datastructure, metadatastructure, categoryscheme, Conceptscheme, codelist, hierarchicalcodelist, organisationscheme, agencyscheme, dataproviderscheme, dataconsumerscheme, organisationunitscheme, dataflow, metadataflow, reportingtaxonomy, provisionagreement, structureset, process, categorisation, contentconstraint, attachmentconstraint and structure.
agencyID (Identifying the maintainer)
Organizations defining metadata are known as agencies in SDMX. In order to retrieve an artefact, you should know the identifier of its maintainer. 
resourceID (Identifying the artefact)
The identifier of the resource, such as CL_FREQ for the frequency codelist maintained by the ECB or ECB_EXR1 for the datastructure definition for exchange rates also maintained by ECB.
version (Getting the right version)
The version of the artefact to be returned. When the version number is not supplied, the latest version is returned.
detail (Defining the amount of detail)

Using the detail parameter, you can specify the desired amount of information to be returned. For example, it is possible to instruct the web service to return only basic information about the resource (i.e. its id, agency id, version and name. This is also known as a stub in SDMX). The allowed values are:

  • full: all available information for all artefacts will be returned. This is the default.
  • allstubs: all artefacts will be returned as stubs.
  • referencestubs: the referenced artefacts will be returned as stubs.
Caption

Using the references parameter, you can instruct the web service to return (or exclude) the artefacts that use or are referenced by the artefact matching the query. This includes, for example, the codelists and Concepts used by the DSD matching the query. You can also retrieve the artefacts that use the matching artefact, such as the Dataflows that use the DSD matching the query. Possible values are:

  • none: no references will be returned. This is the default.
  • parents: the artefacts that use the artefact matching the query (for example, the Dataflows that use the DSD matching the query) will be returned.
  • parentsandsiblings: the artefacts that use the artefact matching the query, as well as the artefacts referenced by these artefacts, will be returned.
  • children: the artefacts referenced by the matching artefact (for example, the Concept schemes and codelists used in a DSD) will be returned.
  • descendants: references of references, up to any level, will also be returned.
  • all: The combination of parentsandsiblings and descendants.

In addition, a concrete type of resource, may also be used (for example, References=Codelist).