IATI-Rulesets

These rulesets are part of IATI Standard Single Source of Truth (SSOT). For more detailed information about the SSOT, please see https://github.com/IATI/IATI-Standard-SSOT/blob/master/meta-docs/index.rst

Note, these rulesets are currently under development, and do not necessarily represent any current or future version of the IATI Standard.

Ruleset Structure

A ruleset is a JSON file which applies different rules to various paths in different element. Strutucure:

{
    "//iati-activity": {
        "atleast_one": {
            "cases": [
                { "paths": ["iati-identifier"] }
            ]
        }
    }
}

Here we have a context: iati-activity, with a single name rule atleast_one which is applied in a number of cases - here just one, with a single path.

Descriptions of each of the named rules can be found in descriptions-en.json

Ruleset Tester

A program is required to test whether a given xml file conforms to the rules in a ruleset JSON file. The rulesets is designed such that implementations of this can be made in multiple programming languages, so long as they implement all of the named rules in descriptions-en.json. Currently there is a completed Python implementation testrules.py and a partially complete PHP implementation testrules.php.

Rules not in these Rulesets

• Testing whether an element is on a certain codelist - this belongs in the IATI-Codelists (see testcodelists.py)
• Testing whether identifier are correct (e.g. uniqueness etc) - this requires information outside the scope of a single activity/file, whereas currently the rulesets operate in just this context. This may change in the future.

Different Rulesets

• standard.json is a ruleset that tries to describe compliance to the standard
• dfid.json is a more comprehensive set of rules based on DFID's requirements for organisations it works with
• ti-fallbacks.json finds problems with data that had to be worked around (using fallbacks) in transparency indicator tests