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OpenCDD

OpenCDD publishes every dictionary in four formats. Choose the one that matches your workflow.

Parcel (.xlsx)

Where: /d/<dict>/ overview, “Downloads” section.

The canonical IEC 62656-1 workbook. 10 sheets, ready for ParcelMaker, Excel, or any CDD-aware pipeline. Produced at build time by Opencdd::Parcel::Writer in the Ruby gem.

The workbook structure:

Project                 metadata
sheetmap                sheet ↔ entity-type mapping
pcls_LOCAL              local class-id bridge
<PROJ>_CLASS            class definitions
<PROJ>_PROPERTY         property definitions
<PROJ>_ENUM             value lists (enumerations)
<PROJ>_TERMINOLOGY      value terms (multilingual labels)
<PROJ>_UoM              units of measurement
<PROJ>_RELATION         relationships between classes
<PROJ>_VIEWCONTROL      view-control metadata

Full JSON

Where: /d/<dict>/ overview, “Downloads” section.

The whole dictionary as one wire-format JSON array. Best for programmatic ingestion (Python, JS, anything that speaks JSON).

Each entity carries parsed fields (preferred_name, definition, synonyms, etc.), multilingual maps (preferred_name_ml), the full raw_properties hash from the source .xls, and the version_history array.

Per-version JSON

Where: /d/<dict>/versions/<code>/<unid>.json (linked from the version timeline on any multi-version entity).

For entities with more than one published version, each historical version is emitted as its own JSON file. Powers time-travel and diff in the browser. Useful for audit pipelines that need to track what an entity looked like at a specific point in time.

Per-entity downloads

Where: the “Download” button on any entity detail page.

Four formats:

  • JSON — full entity payload, including raw_properties and version_history.
  • CDDAL — canonical text fragment (IEC 62656-1). Human-readable, diffs cleanly in git. Round-trips with the opencdd Ruby gem.
  • CSV — one row per (property_id, language) pair. Best for spreadsheets (Excel, Numbers, Google Sheets). Multilingual keys become separate rows.
  • Source XLS — link to the live cdd.iec.ch page where the raw .xls exports can be re-fetched. (OpenCDD doesn’t host raw .xls archives.)

CDDAL fragment example

# OpenCDD CDDAL fragment — single entity
# Entity: 0112/2///63213#KEA012
# Type:   class
# Version: 003
##########################################

instance KEA012 < MDC_C002 {
  MDC_P001_5: "0112/2///63213#KEA012"
  MDC_P002_1: "003"
  MDC_P011: ITEM_CLASS
  preferred_name.en: "General technical data"
  definition.en: "group of properties..."
}

section: “Guides”