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FlowFile

A FlowFile is a logical notion that correlates a piece of data with a set of Attributes about that data. Such attributes include a FlowFile's unique identifier, as well as its name, size, and any number of other flow-specific values. While the contents and attributes of a FlowFile can change, the FlowFile object is immutable. Modifications to a FlowFile are made possible by the ProcessSession.

The core attributes for FlowFiles are defined in the org.apache.nifi.flowfile.attributes.CoreAttributes enum. The most common attributes you'll see are filename, path and uuid. The string in quotes is the value of the attribute within the CoreAttributes enum.

  • Filename ("filename"): The filename of the FlowFile. The filename should not contain any directory structure.

  • UUID ("uuid"): A unique universally unique identifier (UUID) assigned to this FlowFile.

  • Path ("path"): The FlowFile's path indicates the relative directory to which a FlowFile belongs and does not contain the filename.

  • Absolute Path ("absolute.path"): The FlowFile's absolute path indicates the absolute directory to which a FlowFile belongs and does not contain the filename.

  • Priority ("priority"): A numeric value indicating the FlowFile priority.

  • MIME Type ("mime.type"): The MIME Type of this FlowFile.

  • Discard Reason ("discard.reason"): Specifies the reason that a FlowFile is being discarded.

  • Alternative Identifier ("alternate.identifier"): Indicates an identifier other than the FlowFile's UUID that is known to refer to this FlowFile.