Content Component 26.1
Content Component Help

# Metadata Fields

Metadata fields are fields that the Content component creates for documents at index time to display information about the documents when they are returned as results for a query. Some document metadata fields are always displayed when Content returns a document as a query result. You can display all document metadata fields by setting XMLMeta to `True` in your query.

Content displays the following metadata fields for results:

- <autn:baseid>. If the document has multiple sections, this is the ID of the first section of the document. If the document is not sectioned, this value is the same as the document ID.

- <autn:content>. The text content of the document.

- <autn:database>. The Content database in which the document is stored.

- <autn:date>. The date (in epoch seconds) when the document was created. This date is read from the field that has been identified by the `DateType` parameter in the Content component configuration file. If no field has been identified, the date the document was indexed is used instead.

- <autn:expiredate>. The date (in epoch seconds) when the document expires. This date is read from the field that has been identified by the ExpireDateType parameter in the Content component configuration file. If you have set an offset in the ExpireAfterDelay parameter, the `<autn:expiredate>` field includes this offset to calculate the expiration date. When a document expires, it is deleted from Content or moved to a different database (depending on what you set ExpireIntoDatabase to in the Content component configuration file).

- <autn:id>. The document ID. This ID is assigned to the document at index time. If Content is compacted, the IDs of documents change.

- <autn:language>, <autn:languageencoding>, <autn:languagetype>. The language, encoding, and language type associated with the document. The language type is read from the field that you identified by the LanguageType property in the Content component configuration file. The language and encoding of the document are read from the configuration section name and the Encodings parameters set for this language type in the configuration file.

  If no field from which the language type can be read has been identified, the DefaultLanguageType that you set in the configuration file is used instead, unless automatic language detection is enabled, or the document has been submitted to Content with an index action that sets a specific language type for the document.

- <autn:links>. A list of stemmed terms that are contained both in the query and in the result document.

- <autn:reference>. The document reference. This is read from the field that has been identified by the ReferenceType parameter in the Content component configuration file. If no field has been identified, Content automatically generates a reference for the document at index time.

- <autn:section>. The number of sections the document has been split up into at index time. The first section is section 0.

- <autn:title>. The document title. This is read from the field that has been identified by the TitleType parameter in the Content component configuration file. If no field has been identified, the document is not given a title.

- <autn:weight>. The percentage relevance that the document has to the query.

When you set XMLMeta to `True`, Content also returns the following fields for your results set. These metadata fields are used by the DAH for sorting.

- <autn:numericdatesort>. The index (starting from zero) of the elements of your defined sort order that refer to a NumericDateType field.

- <autn:numericsort>. The index (starting from zero) of the elements of your defined sort order that refer to a NumericType field.

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Version 26.1 | Last updated January 2026

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Product: Knowledge Discovery Content Component 26.1

Topic Title: Metadata Fields