Metadata

Noun · Development

Definitions

  1. Data that describes other data — such as a file's creation date, an image's resolution and EXIF tags, a database table's schema, or an API response's pagination info and rate-limit headers. Metadata enables systems to process, index, and manage the primary data without inspecting its contents.

    In plain English: Information about information — like a file's size, creation date, or author, rather than the file's actual contents.

    Example: "The S3 object's metadata includes Content-Type and a custom x-amz-meta-processed-by tag so downstream consumers know what format to expect."

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