JHOVE - JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment
Copyright 2003-2008 by JSTOR and the President and Fellows of Harvard College
JHOVE is made available under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL;
see the file LICENSE for details)
Rev. 1.1, 2008-02-22
JHOVE (the JSTOR/Harvard Object Validation Environment, pronounced "jhove")
is an extensible software framework for performing format identification,
validation, and characterization of digital objects.
o Format identification is the process of determining the format to which a
digital object conforms: "I have a digital object; what format is it?"
o Format validation is the process of determining the level of compliance of a
digital object to the specification for its purported format: "I have an
object purportedly of format F; is it?"
o Format characterization is the process of determing the format-specific
significant properties of an object of a given format: "I have an object of
format F; what are its salient properties?"
These actions are frequently necessary during routine operation of digital
repositories and for digital preservation activities.
The output from JHOVE is controlled by output handlers. JHOVE uses an
extensible plug-in architecture; it can be configured at the time of its
invocation to include whatever specific format modules and output handlers
that are desired. The initial release of JHOVE includes modules for
arbitrary byte streams, ASCII and UTF-8 encoded text, AIFF and WAVE audio,
GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, and PDF; and text and XML output handlers.
The JHOVE project is a collaboration of JSTOR and the Harvard University
Library. Development of JHOVE was funded in part by the Andrew W. Mellon
Foundation. JHOVE is made available under the GNU Lesser General Public
License (LGPL; see the file LICENSE for details).
REQUIREMENTS
1. Java J2SE 1.4
(JHOVE was originally implemented using the Sun J2SE SDK 1.4.1 and has
been tested to work with 1.4.2 <http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/>)
2. If you would like to compile the JHOVE source code, then
Apache Ant, a Java-based build tool <http://ant.apache.org/> is necessary.
Note that the JAVA_HOME environment variable must be set appropriately for
Ant to work properly.
(JHOVE was implemented and tested using Ant 1.5.1.)
DISTRIBUTION
The JHOVE distribution package includes:
jhove/ # JHOVE home directory
COPYING # GNU Lesser General Public License
LICENSE # JHOVE license information
README
RELEASENOTES # JHOVE release notes
bin/
jhove.jar # JHOVE API package
jhove-handler.jar # Standard output handler package
jhove-module.jar # Standard module package
JhoveApp.jar # JHOVE command line application
JhoveView.jar # JHOVE with Swing GUI front-end
build.xml # Ant configuration file
classes/
build.xml # Ant configuration file
edu/ ... # JHOVE API packages
ADump.* # AIFF dump utility class
GDump.* # GIF dump utility class
Jhove.* # JHOVE main class
JDump.* # JPEG dump utility class
J2Dump.* # JPEG 2000 dump utility class
PDump.* # PDF dump utility class
TDump.* # TIFF dump utility class
UserHome.* # user.home property utility class
WDump.* # WAVE dump utility class
conf/
jhove.conf # JHOVE configuration file
jhove.xsd # JHOVE output schema
jhoveConfig.xsd # JHOVE configuration file schema
doc/
*.html # API documentation
...
examples/ # Sample files
ascii/ ...
gif/ ...
jpeg/ ...
jpeg2000/ ...
pdf/ ...
tiff/ ...
utf-8/ ...
adump* # AIFF dump Bourne shell driver
adump.bat* # AIFF dump DOS shell driver script
gdump* # GIF dump Bourne shell driver
gdump.bat* # GIF dump DOS shell driver script
jdump* # JPEG dump Bourne shell driver
jdump.bat* # JPEG dump DOS shell driver script
j2dump* # JPEG 2000 dump Bourne shell driver
j2dump.bat* # JPEG 2000 dump DOS shell driver
jhove.tmpl* # Template for JHOVE Bourne shell driver script
jhove_bat.tmpl* # Template for JHOVE DOS shell driver script
pdump* # PDF dump Bourne shell driver
pdump.bat* # PDF dump DOS shell driver script
tdump* # TIFF dump Bourne shell driver
tdump.bat* # TIFF dump DOS shell driver script
userhome* # user.home Bourne shell driver
userhome.bat* # user.home DOS shell driver script
wdump* # WAVE dump Bourne shell driver
wdump.bat* # WAVE dump DOS shell driver script
INSTALLATION
Edit the configuration file, jhove/conf/jhove.conf, and set the absolute
pathname of the JHOVE home directory and the temporary directory (in which
temporary files are created):
<jhoveHome>jhove-home-directory</jhoveHome>
<tempDirectory>temporary-directory</tempDirectory>
The JHOVE home directory is the top-most directory in the distribution TAR
or ZIP file. On Unix systems, "/var/tmp" is an appropriate temporary
directory; on Windows, "C:\Temp". For example, if the distribution TAR
file is disaggregated on a Unix system in the directory "/users/stephen/
projects", then the configuration file should read:
<jhoveHome>/users/stephen/projects/jhove</jhoveHome>
<tempDirectory>/var/tmp</jhoveHome>
In the JHOVE home directory, copy the JHOVE Bourne shell driver script
template, "jhove.tmpl", to "jhove" (or the equivalent Windows shell
script, "jhove_bat.tmpl" to "jhove.bat"), and set the
JHOVE home directory, Java home directory, and Java interpreter:
JHOVE_HOME=jhove-home-directory
JAVA_HOME=java-home-directory
JAVA=java-interpreter
The JAVA_HOME property should provide the absolute pathname of the Java
runtime or SDK installation; JAVA should provide the absolute pathname of the
Java interpreter. For example:
JHOVE_HOME=/users/stephen/projects/jhove
JAVA_HOME=/usr/local/j2re1.4.1_02
JAVA=$JAVA_HOME/bin/java
In the DOS shell driver script, jhove.bat, the equivalent three
variables are:
SET JHOVE_HOME=jhove-home-directory
SET JAVA_HOME=java-home-directory
SET JAVA=%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java
For example:
SET JHOVE_HOME="C:\Program Files\jhove"
SET JAVA_HOME="C:\Program Files\java\j2re1.4.1_02"
SET JAVA=%JAVA_HOME%\bin\java
The quotation marks are necessary because of the embedded space characters.
On Windows platforms it may also be necessary to add the Java bin subdirectory
to the System PATH environment variable:
PATH=C:\Program Files\java\j2re1.4.1_02\bin;...
(For information on setting a Windows environment variable, consult your local
documentation or system administrator.)
USAGE
java Jhove [-c config] [-m module] [-h handler] [-e encoding] [-H handler]
[-o output] [-x saxclass] [-t tempdir] [-b bufsize]
[-l loglevel] [[-krs] dir-file-or-uri [...]]
where -c config Configuration file pathname
-m module Module name
-h handler Output handler name (defaults to TEXT)
-e encoding Character encoding used by output handler (defaults to UTF-8)
-H handler About handler name
-o output Output file pathname (defaults to standard output)
-x saxclass SAX parser class (defaults to J2SE 1.4 default)
-t tempdir Temporary directory in which to create temporary files
-b bufsize Buffer size for buffered I/O (defaults to J2SE 1.4 default)
-l loglevel Logging level
-k Calculate CRC32, MD5, and SHA-1 checksums
-r Display raw data flags, not textual equivalents
-s Format identification based on internal signatures only
dir-file-or-uri Directory or file pathname or URI of formated content
stream
All named modules and output handlers must be found on the Java CLASSPATH at
the time of invocation. The JHOVE driver script, jhove/jhove, automatically
sets the CLASSPATH and invokes the Jhove main class:
jhove [-c config] [-m module] [-h handler] [-e encoding] [-H handler]
[-o output] [-x saxclass] [-t tempdir] [-b bufsize] [-l loglevel]
[[-krs] dir-file-or-uri [...]]
The following additional programs are available, primarily for testing
and debugging purposes. They display a minimally processed, human-readable
version of the contents of AIFF, GIF, JPEG, JPEG 2000, PDF, TIFF, and WAVE
files:
java ADump aiff-file
java GDump gif-file
java JDump jpeg-file
java J2Dump jpeg2000-file
java PDump pdf-file
java TDump tiff-file
java WDump wave-file
For convenience, the following driver scripts are also available:
adump aiff-file
gdump gif-file
jdump jpeg-file
j2dump jpeg2000-file
pdump pdf-file
tdump tiff-file
wdump wave-file
The JHOVE Swing-based GUI interface can be invoked from a command shell from
the jhove/bin sub-directory:
java -jar JhoveView.jar -c <configFile>
where <configFile> is the pathname of the JHOVE configuration file.