# Metadata discovery

You can use metadata discovery automate the tedious process of manually identifying and determining metadata from Cobol Copybook and JDBC databases.

* [**Read metadata from Copybook**](/pdia-data-integration/10.2-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview/read-metadata-from-copybook.md)

  The Read metadata from Copybook step reads a binary fixed-length copybook definition file and outputs the file and column descriptor information as fields to Pentaho Data Integration rows.
* [**Query metadata from a database**](/pdia-data-integration/10.2-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview/query-metadata-from-a-database-article.md)

  The Query metadata from a database step discovers metadata from six different JDBC metadata types to use with [ETL Metadata Injection](/pdia-data-integration/10.2-data-integration/pdi-transformation-steps-reference-overview/etl-metadata-injection.md) in PDI.


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.pentaho.com/pdia-data-integration/10.2-data-integration/advanced-topics-pentaho-data-integration-overview/copybook-steps-in-pdi-cp/metadata-discovery.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.