PROV Python Library

Warnings

• breaking Python 2.x support was removed in version 2.0.0. The library is now Python 3 only.
  Fix: Upgrade to Python 3.9+ and `prov` version 2.x. Ensure your code is compatible with Python 3.
• breaking Support for several End-of-Life Python versions has been dropped incrementally. Python 3.3 was removed in v1.5.3, Python 3.6 and 3.7 in v2.0.1, and Python 3.8 in v2.0.2. Current versions require Python >=3.9.
  Fix: Ensure your project runs on Python 3.9 or newer. The latest `prov` version (2.1.1) supports Python 3.9-3.13.
• breaking The `rdflib` dependency, used for PROV-O (RDF) serialization, was restricted to versions less than 7 (`rdflib <7`) starting from `prov` version 2.0.1 due to compatibility issues.
  Fix: When installing `prov[rdf]`, ensure `rdflib` is installed as `rdflib<7` or check for newer `prov` versions that explicitly support `rdflib` 7+ if available.
• deprecated The `pydotplus` dependency for graphical output was replaced by `pydot` in version 1.5.1.
  Fix: If you were using `pydotplus` with older `prov` versions, switch to `pydot` for graphical visualizations with newer `prov` releases. Ensure `Graphviz` is also installed.
• breaking The underlying data model for PROV documents underwent a rewrite in version 1.0.0, introducing incompatibilities with pre-1.0 versions. Methods like `add_record()` were renamed to `new_record()` in v1.0.1, and references to PROV elements became `QualifiedName` instances.
  Fix: Review the changelog for `prov` version 1.0.0 and 1.0.1. Significant code changes may be required for migration from pre-1.0 versions.
• gotcha Naming a local Python file or module `prov.py` will cause an `ImportError` due to a name collision with the `prov` library itself.
  Fix: Rename your local file or module to something other than `prov.py` to avoid masking the actual library.

Install

• pip install prov Install stable version

Imports

• ProvDocument

  from prov.model import ProvDocument

  Core classes like ProvDocument and Namespace reside in the 'prov.model' submodule.
• Namespace

  from prov.model import Namespace

  Core classes like ProvDocument and Namespace reside in the 'prov.model' submodule.
• PROV_REC_NAMESPACE

  from prov.constants import PROV_REC_NAMESPACE

  Constants are defined in the 'prov.constants' submodule.

Quickstart

This example demonstrates how to create a simple PROV document, define namespaces, add entities, activities, and agents, and link them with provenance relations. It then prints the PROV-N (PROV Notation) representation of the document. For JSON or XML serialization, additional dependencies and specific serializers are used.

import datetime
from prov.model import ProvDocument, Namespace, PROV_REC_NAMESPACE

# Create a new provenance document
doc = ProvDocument()

# Declare namespaces
doc.add_namespace('ex', 'http://example.org/')
doc.set_default_namespace('http://example.com/prov-example/')

# Declare entities, activities, agents
e1 = doc.entity('ex:entity1', {'prov:label': 'Example Entity 1'})
a1 = doc.activity('ex:activity1', datetime.datetime.now(), datetime.datetime.now(), {'prov:label': 'Example Activity 1'})
ag1 = doc.agent('ex:agent1', {'prov:label': 'Example Agent 1', PROV_REC_NAMESPACE['type']: PROV_REC_NAMESPACE['Person']})

# Establish relationships
doc.wasGeneratedBy(e1, a1, datetime.datetime.now())
doc.wasAssociatedWith(a1, ag1)

# Print the PROV-N representation
print(doc.get_provn())

# To serialize to PROV-JSON (requires the 'json' extra, installed with `pip install prov[json]`)
# from prov.serializers import provjson
# import json
# with open('example.json', 'w') as f:
#     provjson.ProvJSONSerializer(doc).serialize(f)