IQSS / IQSS/dataverse

Support uploading of archives (ZIP, other).

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Component: JSF Feature: File Upload & Handling GREI 6 Type: Suggestion User Role: Depositor
Dominant language
Java
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Description

Following on #3439 because that is closed.

There are many good reasons to discourage uploading archived files, summarized as:

It is not FAIR

However, there are many use cases where archives (e.g. ZIP files) are necessary, or at least a major improvement over un-archived. Dataverse should discourage but support archive uploads.

One simple use case is when sharing a shapefile, which itself is already not very FAIR. This file format is actually a folder of n files (6 or 7?), one of which has the extension 'shp' and is also called a 'shapefile'. However, if users only download that file, it does not work. They need the entire folder. There is no benefit to exposing these 6 or 7 binary files individually, they should be distributed as a package, and the most common and supported package is a ZIP file.

Another use-case: 100,000 small text files that might make up a data set, all working together. One could argue it is un-FAIR to mint 100,000 new DOIs and require the user to deal with each of these files individually, especially given existing issues with Dataverse bulk download.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Read the referenced issue #3439 first, then trace Dataverse’s existing upload and download behavior; this issue names no source files or tests. Before implementation, define how archive uploads should be discouraged and supported for the shapefile and many-small-files cases, and establish tests for the agreed behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
java
Domain
backend
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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