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Introduction
The Bureau of Meteorology's products come in a wide variety of forms and from many sources. Cataloguing such a complex range of products is essential if users of the information, both inside the Bureau and elsewhere in Australia and the world, are to be able to identify and retrieve the particular products which are of interest to them. Products must change as needs and technology develop, so it is necessary to manage any changes in identification codes in a way which minimises disruption to users' systems.
The purpose of this document is to describe the format of the ID Codes used to uniquely describe products which are made available via the Internet WWW and FTP services.
To see what products are currently available, view the current Product ID Code listing.
The ID listing will be made more comprehensive with time, and any changes to specific product IDs or the ID convention will be displayed here.
The general form of the identification code is:
IDsxxxxx
where:
ID = a constant which identifies this string as an ID code;
s = Source of product
xxxxx = individual product identifier whose form depends on the originator
For products originating from the Regions, the individual product identifier (xxxxx) will in most cases be a five digit number that corresponds to a product identification system used internally.
Source of product
The source indicator may have the following values:
Note, there are exceptions to the above format. These exceptions are described below.
There are some products that consist of parts / components - each with their own Product ID Code.
In these situations, for each component product, the ID Code will have as its first eight characters the ID Code of the parent product, followed by two digits (beginning with "01") to uniquely identify the component.
For example, if we have a product with the ID Code IDN99999 and five components (each needing their own ID Code), then the ID Codes of the five component products will be:
For some products the individual product identifier (xxxxx - described above in "General Format") will not be a five digit number.
These products, known as Placeholder Products, will follow the format:
IDsPxxxx
where:
ID = a constant which identifies this string as an ID code;
s = Source of product (as described above in "General Format")
P = a constant which identifies the product as a placeholder
xxxx = four digit sequential number used to provide uniqueness
Placeholder Products are used where there is not a one-to-one correspondence
between the product creation system used internally and the products delivered
to clients. These situations occur when:
. different types of product relate to the same meteorological event (eg. Watch
and Warning for a Tropical Cyclone)
. products are created by one Region for another Region (eg. Cross-border products)
IDscxxxx
where:
ID = a constant which identifies this string as an ID code;
s = Source of product (as described above in "General Format")
c = a code which identifies the Regional sub-system
xxxx = four digit sequential number used to provide uniqueness
Codes for the Regional sub-system include:
E = Satellite
G = Media Graphics
S = Special
Last updated on 1st of May, 2001
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