Why EML/Software not proposed as a way to give metadata for code?

[yvanlebras]

Dear EDI colleagues,

Sorry if I miss something, but reading the EDI best practice page for "code" "special cases", https://ediorg.github.io/data-package-best-practices/guide-special-cases/code.html , it seems to me code can gain to be described in the EML "software" dedicated section, in methods for example, instead in "OtherEntity". Am i wrong ?

THANK you for this amazing resource and all your work on EML and best practices !!

And... the best for this new year!

[gremau]

Hello @yvanlebras - thanks for the question. I think there are two practices you are referring to here. In a dataset described with EML metadata, you could:

1. publish some code (some R files, for example) , and you would describe those code files using the EML "otherEntity" element. This is appropriate because the code is not a tabular dataset, so not suitable as a "dataTable" entity. That is what is described in the "Code" chapter of the Special Cases document, as you pointed out
2. publish data (a CSV file included as a "dataTable", for example) that was created using some software or code (maybe an R package). In this case you would describe that software as part of the methods for creating the data files in the "methods/methodStep/software" EML element. That is described in the EML Best Practices "Methods" chapter.

I hope that makes sense, and please correct me if I misunderstood.

I believe the Special Cases document you referred to is still a little out of date. We hope to update this in the next year, so if you have suggestions to make anything more clear please let us know.

[twhiteaker]

I think there was also a practical consideration. Tools for creating EML which can create the <software> tree are less common. The <software> tree also doesn't include the <physical> tree which is useful for describing file names, formats and types.

@yvanlebras Do you have a need for using the software tree? Or do you use or know of applications which parse that tree and do something useful with it? We're about to make a round of edits, so this is a good time to gather community feedback.