[Cbor] Re: Rebooting the naming discussion (Re: EDN file extension (Re: registrations before WGLC Re: I-D Action: draft-ietf-cbor-edn-literals-23.txt))

[Rohan Mahy <[e-mail]>]

Another reason to not restrict EDN to CBOR:
https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-mahy-cbor-edn-for-tls-00.html

thanks,
-rohan


On Mon, 4 May 2026, 11:22 Carsten Bormann, <[e-mail]> wrote:

>
> On 2026-05-04, at 00:04, Michael Richardson <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >
> > A search for .diag isn't gonna generate much.
> > I'd go with ".ednc" or maybe... ".cedn", but I haven't done a conflict
> search
> > for that.
>
> It is not clear to me that search precision on the file extension is an
> overriding concern.
> (As Vadim found out, the specific names you are proposing are in use, but
> with limited potential for conflict.)
>
> >> So how big is the appetite for changing this now?
> >
> > If it's cheap and simple, pick one.
>
> We already did this three years ago; it seems to me that some of us now
> want to revisit the names fundamentally, in particular considering the
> scope creep this document went through.
>
> We are currently using “EDN” because that is the name we gave to the
> diagnostic notation extensions written up in RFC 8610.  The original name
> was “diagnostic notation”, and that continues to fit well, but doesn’t
> generate great abbreviations.
>
> So if we were to go for a great renaming, I would simply call the format
>
>         CBOR diagnostic notation (CDN).
>
> The file name extension .cdn is mostly in use as an obscure file format
> for printing on Avery labels.
> I know the abbreviation itself is in use for something else, but that
> shouldn’t be a problem for this use, as CDNs are not usually put in files...
>
> Some comments didn’t want “CBOR” in the expanded name, because the format
> can be used for other things than CBOR like JSON or YAML can be — I’d say
> it sure can, but having the origin in the name qualifies it much better
> than “EDN” apparently did.
> Note that JSON has JavaScript in its expanded name, which doesn’t seem to
> have hurt its acceptance as a general data representation format either.
>
> (Extensibility really is one of the hallmarks of the whole CBOR ecosystem,
> so substituting the E with a C does not lose information.)
>
> So my entry into the big raffle is:
>
> Name: CBOR diagnostic notation (CDN)
> Media type: application/cdn
> Filename extension: .cdn
>
> Nice and consistent.
>
> Grüße, Carsten
>
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