---
title: container
slug: /main-concepts/metadata-standard/schemas/entity/data/container
---

# Container

*This schema defines the Container entity. A Container is an abstraction for any path(including the top level eg. bucket in S3) storing data in an Object store such as S3, GCP, Azure. It maps a tree-like structure, where each Container can have a parent and a list of sub-folders, and it can be structured - where it contains structured data, or unstructured where no schema for its data is defined.*

## Properties

- **`id`**: Unique identifier that identifies this container instance. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/uuid*.
- **`name`**: Name that identifies the container. Refer to *#/definitions/entityName*.
- **`fullyQualifiedName`**: Name that uniquely identifies a container in the format 'ServiceName.ContainerName'. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/fullyQualifiedEntityName*.
- **`displayName`** *(string)*: Display Name that identifies this container.
- **`description`**: Description of the container instance. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/markdown*.
- **`version`**: Metadata version of the entity. Refer to *../../type/entityHistory.json#/definitions/entityVersion*.
- **`updatedAt`**: Last update time corresponding to the new version of the entity in Unix epoch time milliseconds. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/timestamp*.
- **`updatedBy`** *(string)*: User who made the update.
- **`href`**: Link to the resource corresponding to this entity. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/href*.
- **`owner`**: Owner of this container. Refer to *../../type/entityReference.json*.
- **`service`**: Link to the storage service where this container is hosted in. Refer to *../../type/entityReference.json*.
- **`parent`**: Link to the parent container under which this entity sits, if not top level. Refer to *../../type/entityReference.json*.
- **`children`**: References to child containers residing under this entity. Refer to *../../type/entityReferenceList.json*.
- **`dataModel`**: References to the container's data model, if data is structured, or null otherwise. Refer to *#/definitions/containerDataModel*. Default: `None`.
- **`prefix`** *(string)*: Optional prefix path defined for this container. Default: `None`.
- **`numberOfObjects`** *(number)*: The number of objects/files this container has. Default: `None`.
- **`size`** *(number)*: The total size in KB this container has. Default: `None`.
- **`fileFormats`** *(array)*: File & data formats identified for the container:  e.g. dataFormats=[csv, json]. These can be present both when the container has a dataModel or not. Default: `None`.
  - **Items**: Refer to *#/definitions/fileFormat*.
- **`serviceType`**: Service type this table is hosted in. Refer to *../services/storageService.json#/definitions/storageServiceType*.
- **`followers`**: Followers of this container. Refer to *../../type/entityReferenceList.json*.
- **`tags`** *(array)*: Tags for this container. Default: `None`.
  - **Items**: Refer to *../../type/tagLabel.json*.
- **`changeDescription`**: Change that lead to this version of the entity. Refer to *../../type/entityHistory.json#/definitions/changeDescription*.
- **`deleted`** *(boolean)*: When `true` indicates the entity has been soft deleted. Default: `False`.
- **`extension`**: Entity extension data with custom attributes added to the entity. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/entityExtension*.
- **`sourceUrl`**: Source URL of container. Refer to *../../type/basic.json#/definitions/sourceUrl*.
- **`domain`**: Domain the Container belongs to. When not set, the Container inherits the domain from the storage service it belongs to. Refer to *../../type/entityReference.json*.
- **`votes`**: Refer to *../../type/votes.json*.
- **`lifeCycle`**: Life Cycle properties of the entity. Refer to *../../type/lifeCycle.json*.
## Definitions

- **`entityName`** *(string)*: Name of a container. Expected to be unique in the same level containers.
- **`containerDataModel`** *(object)*: This captures information about how the container's data is modeled, if it has a schema. . Cannot contain additional properties.
  - **`isPartitioned`** *(boolean)*: Whether the data under this container is partitioned by some property, eg. eventTime=yyyy-mm-dd. Default: `False`.
  - **`columns`** *(array)*: Columns belonging to this container's schema.
    - **Items**: Refer to *../data/table.json#/definitions/column*.
- **`fileFormat`** *(string)*: This schema defines the file formats for the object/files within a container. Must be one of: `['zip', 'gz', 'zstd', 'csv', 'tsv', 'json', 'parquet', 'avro']`.


Documentation file automatically generated at 2023-10-27 13:55:46.343512.