5.5

Table Of Contents
vCloud API Object Metadata Limits
The following limits apply to vCloud API object metadata:
Metadata key size
The contents of a Key element in a MetadataEntry cannot exceed 256 UTF-8
characters.
Metadata size
The size of all Metadata for an object, computed as the sum of all Key and
TypedValue UTF-8 strings in all MetadataEntry elements in the GENERAL
domain, cannot exceed 128 KB. An additional 16KB of MetadataEntry content
can be created in the SYSTEM domain.
MetadataEntry limit
The total metadata associated with an object cannot exceed 1024
MetadataEntry elements in the GENERAL domain and 128 MetadataEntry
elements in the SYSTEM domain.
This chapter includes the following topics:
n
“Retrieve or Update a Metadata Element,” on page 283
n
“Retrieve or Update a Metadata Value,” on page 286
Retrieve or Update a Metadata Element
A system administrator or the owner of an object can create, retrieve, or update the object's Metadata
element. This element contains all object metadata, and operations that modify it merge the modifications
with existing contents.
When you create an object, its representation contains an empty Metadata element. A system administrator
or the object owner can add metadata by updating the Metadata element with new MetadataEntry elements.
Each of these elements contains a Key and a TypedValue. The contents of the Key element define the key
name, which must be unique within the scope of the object's metadata. You can modify the value associated
with an existing key. See “Retrieve or Update a Metadata Value,” on page 286.
NOTE The Key element cannot contain a semicolon character (;). In addition, several other character
sequences are not allowed, or not allowed in certain positions.
Table 83. Content Restrictions for Key
Cannot Contain Cannot Start with Cannot End with
/../ ./ /.
/./ ../ /..
Prerequisites
Verify that you have rights to read or modify the metadata. See “Access Control for vCloud API Object
Metadata,” on page 282
Procedure
1 Retrieve the representation of the object.
Examine the response to find its metadata link. This example shows the metadata link from an AdminOrg.
<Link
rel="down"
type="application/vnd.vmware.vcloud.metadata+xml"
href="https://vcloud.example.com/api/admin/org/26/metadata"/>
Chapter 8 Working With Object Metadata
VMware, Inc. 283