The NARA File Analyzer Tool walks a directory tree and performs a "File Test" on each file that is encountered. The application framework allows new File Tests to be quickly developed and deployed into the application. The results of each File Test are compiled into a table that summarizes the results of the analysis.
A File Test is a simple set of actions that are performed upon a single file such as filename validation, file size statistical analysis, checksum calculation, file type extraction. Depending on the action, the content of the file may or may not be read. Each File Test is configured with filters that determine which files will be processed by the File Test (i.e. only image files).
Each File Test will generate a table of results. The number of columns and the definition of the columns will vary from test to test. For example, a file type analysis will report the file extension and the number of files discovered with that extension. The checksum file tests will report the name of a file and the checksum string associated with that file.
The File Analyzer tool can be run as a GUI in which the results are displayed in a table. The File Analyzer can also be run in batch mode. In batch mode, the results will be written to a tab-separated file. The GUI version of the application allows the results of multiple executions to be merged. The merged information can be filtered to display matching values and mismatched values.
The NARA File Analyzer automates a number of simple tasks that would be tedious to perform either manually or with other COTS applications.
The match/merge capabilities have provided a very powerful and simple mechanism to ensure quality control checks on large numbers of files.
Note: NARA has also deployed a customized version of this application that performs file tests that implement custom business rules such as file name validation and metadata introspection.
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The basic File Analyzer application is deployed as a self-extracting jar file. The application requires Java SE 1.6 or higher to be present on the user's workstation. The application can be launched by double clicking the jar file.
If additional runtime memory is needed when running the application, a simple windows bat file can be created to launch the application with a larger memory allocation.
java -mx1000m -jar fileAnalyzer.jar
Additional documentation can be found in the doc/NARA File Analyzer and Metadata Harvester.doc document.