SDMx Technical Documentation¶

Project Description¶

This project provides a new, easier-to-browse and searchable version of the SDMx Technical Documentation. It brings together all active specifications from the official SDMx website and the GitHub repositories maintained by the SDMx Technical Standards Working Group (TWG), now shown centrally here.

Documentation Layout¶

• Top-level navigation: available through the horizontal bar at the top.
• Second-level navigation: available in the left sidebar.
• Within-page navigation: available in the right sidebar.

This structure allows quick access to high-level sections, detailed subsections, and in-page anchors.

Contents of the Documentation¶

The SDMx initiative (https://www.sdmx.org) sets standards for statistical data and metadata using modern information technology.

The SDMx Technical Specifications are organised into several discrete sections, which are all available in this documentation site.

Framework and Information Model¶

• Section 1 – Framework for SDMx Technical Standards Provides an introduction to the technical standards.
• Section 2 – SDMx Information Model A standardised object model for modelling statistical domains, covering the structure of data and metadata sets, coding schemes, and exchange rules. Includes UML specifications and narrative.

Registries and Technical Notes¶

• Section 5 – SDMx Registry Specification Specification of the SDMx Registry, a repository for structural metadata and provisioning information.
• Section 6 – SDMx Technical Notes Detailed technical guidance for implementors of the SDMx standard.

Transmission Formats and APIs¶

• REST API Technical specifications for the SDMx RESTful web services API.
• SDMx-ML Technical specifications for the XML transmission format, including schemas, documentation, and samples.
• SDMx-JSON Technical specifications for the JSON transmission format, including documentation, schemas, and samples.
• SDMx-CSV Technical specifications for the CSV transmission format for data and reference metadata.

VTL (Validation and Transformation Language)¶

Since 2020, the SDMx specifications include support for the Validation and Transformation Language (VTL). For SDMx 3.0, the VTL specification has been updated to align with changes to the Information Model and the introduction of Semantic Versioning.

• Information Model covers the “Transformation and Expressions” package for defining and managing VTL 2.0 programs.
• Technical Notes provides detailed guidance on implementing and using VTL with SDMx.

Obsolete Sections (not included here)¶

• Section 3 – SDMx-ML (replaced by SDMx-ML repository)
• Section 4 – SDMx-EDI
• Section 7 – API (replaced by SDMx REST API)

Feedback¶

We welcome feedback to improve this documentation. Please provide your input via:

• GitHub Issues
• E-Mail: twg@sdmx.org

Matrix of SDMx and REST / Transmission Format Versions¶

The SDMx versions do not coincide with the versions of all sections of the standard. This page includes for each SDMx version the documentation of REST-API, SDMx-ML, SDMx-JSON, and SDMx-CSV that were released together with the standard:

Please refer to the individual repositories for other versions of the packages:

• REST-API,
• SDMx-ML,
• SDMx-JSON, and
• SDMx-CSV.