Re: Last Call: <draft-ietf-appsawg-json-patch-08.txt> (JSON Patch) to Proposed Standard

[Barry Leiba <[e-mail]>]

> Abstract
>    JSON Patch defines the media type "application/json-patch", a JSON
>    document structure for expressing a sequence of operations to apply
>    to a JSON document, suitable for use with the HTTP PATCH method.
...
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-ietf-appsawg-json-patch/

I've reviewed JSON Patch and JSON Pointer as responsible AD, and am
very happy with the documents -- this is good work, well written.  I
came up with one issue that I want to discuss as part of last call:

   4.1.  add

   The "add" operation adds a new value at the target location.  The
   operation object MUST contain a "value" member that specifies the
   value to be added.

   For example:

   { "op": "add", "path": "/a/b/c", "value": [ "foo", "bar" ] }

   When the operation is applied, the target location MUST reference one
   of:

   o  The root of the target document - whereupon the specified value
      becomes the entire content of the target document.

Now, what this means is that if we start with this:

{ "a": { "num": 1 } }

and we apply this:

{ "op": "add", "path": "", "value": [ "foo", "bar" ] }

we end up with this:

[ "foo", "bar" ]

This doesn't strike me as having any sense of an "add" operation -- it
appears to be a special case that doesn't fit.  In any other
situation, using any other path, the operation either adds something
to what's already there, or it fails.  But when the path is "", it's
anomalous.

So, three questions:

1. Do I have this right, or am I mistaken about the result of that operation?

2. Assuming I have it right, can someone explain why it's this way?

3. Can someone explain why this is the right way to specify it, rather
than using "replace" for this?

Barry