The Department provides a service whereby selected reference files and code lists can be retrieved by users on demand. The list of files available is listed below. Users can retrieve some or all of the files.
Each file will be available in two formats which the user can select from. The formats comprise a complete listing file and a difference file. Each time the files are updated a new complete listing and a difference file is made available. The difference or change file will list the changes that have been made since the last update was made to the file. If there have been no changes made to the file then the file will not be updated.
The files will be updated on a daily basis as soon as practicable after midnight.
Users can access the files via a standard HTTPS based file transfer mechanism. The pages are available without the need for user authentication, meaning that they are hosted in the public domain. Users are able to browse to the directories via a standard Web Browser where they can view and save the files individually, or they can script via a HTTP based “get” utility one or all of the files.
Reference File Page Location
The Root directory is located at
https://www.ccf.customs.gov.au/reference .
There is a folder for Industry Test and another for Production.
Each of these folders lists contains two other folders each of which contain the complete and change files. The complete files are listed in the Main folder and the change files in the Change folder.
Each folder contains the individual complete and change files plus a compressed file of all of the files in the folder.
Change File History
The history of change files is maintained for six days. The current day plus five further days in the past. The current days files are contained in the Today folder and yesterdays files are in the Today -1 folder and so on to the Today -5 folder.
Each day the change files are moved from one folder to the next until they are eventually cycled out.
Only files that have changed are included in the relevant change folder. Hence files that do not change often, will rarely be seen in the change folders.
File Formats
The Code Lists all have a standard format which is the
Code List Standard Format , whereas each Reference File has a specific format and is linked to its respective format file.
File Name Structure
Each file name conforms to the following structure:
'file name'-'environment'-'file group''file type'-'date&time'.txt
where:
-
file name is the name of the file (which is unique for reference files but not code lists)
-
environment is the system environment that the file was sourced from (Q1 is industry test and P1 is production)
-
file group is the principal group that the file belongs to (EE being exports and ED being imports)
-
file type refers to data extraction method (MAIN being a complete extraction of the file and CHNG being an extraction of changes or differences between two complete extractions)
-
date&time refers to the date and time that the file was produced in the format YYMMDDHHMM
A complete example file name is:
XCHGRATE-P1-EDCHNG-0506081259.txt
Please note that code lists can have the same file name. Where the file name is the same the distinguising element is the second character of the file group. For example:
Advice Status is CDLST01 and is distinguished by file group ED whereas Customs Region Codes is alos CDLST01 which is distinguished by file group EE.
Listing of Reference Files
A complete listing of the reference files is shown in the table below. The file name that is the Customs web site is listed as well. Please note that code lists also have the distinguishing file group shown with the file name.
Nov 2024
