Re: [Cbor] [COSE] CBOR magic number, file format and tags

[Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>]

I think this belongs in CBOR, not COSE.
It sounds like this is something that a few people are interested in persuing.
Is it a BCP or a Standard?

Carsten Bormann <[e-mail]> wrote:
    > Challenge accepted.  CBOR diagnostic notation is quite versatile, you
    > just have to tell cbor2diag.rb what you want.

okay.

    > cbor2diag.rb -t: bytes_as_text, i.e., use text form for bytes if
    > possible.

    > $ printf cbor | cbor2diag.rb -t "bor" $ printf CBOR | cbor2diag.rb -t
    > ‘BOR'

    > Oh, and, BTW:

    > cbor2diag.rb -e: try_decode_embedded, i.e., try embedded CBOR.

    > $ printf CBOR | cbor2diag.rb -te << 'OR' >>

alright, I award full cool points.

    > Back to the magic number issue:

    > For CBOR data items, I prefer registering a tag and prefixing with that
    > head (*) over prefixing with an array head and a string.  See, we have
    > a magic number registry built right into CBOR...

I can live with this, but here are my concerns.
If we go this way, then it just becomes a BCP on good CBOR protocol design.

1) when transmitting over the wire, shorter tags are preferred, and I'm
   concerned that they will be too short to useful *on-disk* magic numbers.
   The same short sequence could occur in other kinds of files rather easily.

2) I wanted a structure that made it rather easy for an application that is
   reading from the disk to know what part they can omit when transmitting.
   That's why I initially looked at the two-element array, with the second
   element being the actual "thing"

    > For CBOR sequences, obviously prefixing the sequence with a
    > CBOR-encoded (text or byte) string sounds quite good.  Making that
    > optional (to save bytes when you don’t need it) requires that the
    > sequence otherwise cannot start with that kind of string.

For on-disk files, if one uses a CBOR Sequence, I wasn't thinking about ever
having the prefix be optional.  But, we could go that way easily if do

   Tag<per-protocol-tag>CBOR
or
   Tag<CBOR-protocol-tag>Per-protocol-Value.

As the prefix, as I think that would be quite easily not part of any protocol.

--
Michael Richardson <[e-mail]>   . o O ( IPv6 IøT consulting )
           Sandelman Software Works Inc, Ottawa and Worldwide