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Persistent Identifiers (PID) at CSCS logoPersistent Identifiers (PID) at CSCS logo

Experiment with PID

To start experimenting with PIDs go to the official PID demo generator.

  1. Enter a URL in the URL field.

  2. Enter a TYPE (like “resourceType”) and a VALUE (like “Site”). These represent a minimal metadata associated with the PID. The valid types are managed by a registry.

  3. Push “Get your DEMO PID” and you are redirected to a page that shows the PID associated to the URL you entered. It is something like: 21.T11998/0000-0015-72D0-D. The PREFIX shows it is a PID (“21.”) for testing (“T”) released by an opaque issuer (“11998”). The SUFFIX is a string selected by the demo software guaranteed to be unique. In the next steps change the PID with the one you generated.

  4. From this page you can click on the PID to be redirected to the corresponding URL. Copy the generated PID.

  5. Return to the previous page and put the copied PID in the “Your PID” field. Now, if you push the “Show PID” button you will see the record associated with the PID. Pushing instead “Resolve PID” you are redirected to the associated URL.

  6. In a browser enter: hdl.handle.net/21.T11998/0000-0015-72D0-D to see the record associated with the PID. Note that if you leave out the ?noredirect part of the above URL you are redirected to your entered URL.

  7. Test the resolver API. In the browser enter hdl.handle.net/api/handles/21.T11998/0000-0015-72D0-D and look at the returned JSON data. It contains the machine readable entries you displayed in the previous step. Depending on the browser, you can append ?pretty=true to the URL to see a more readable version of the same data.

To end this short tutorial you can look at the official FAQ or send a question to CSCS PID support.