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Re: [Json] Limitations on number size?

Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com> Wed, 05 June 2013 17:53 UTC

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Date: Wed, 05 Jun 2013 11:20:04 -0500
Message-ID: <CAK3OfOj2O1cx+yhNEPHf8Jy5YEs9uWG0cOUsNeEV-WydOQCC7g@mail.gmail.com>
From: Nico Williams <nico@cryptonector.com>
To: Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org>
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Cc: Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com>, Paul Hoffman <paul.hoffman@vpnc.org>, json@ietf.org
Subject: Re: [Json] Limitations on number size?
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On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Carsten Bormann <cabo@tzi.org> wrote:
> On Jun 5, 2013, at 18:05, Tim Bray <tbray@textuality.com> wrote:
>
>> Superfluous. The spec is perfectly clear on number representations.
>
> This text is about number representations only on the surface (and that part can be dialed down).
>
> It may be completely superfluous to you and me, but I have run into enough people who simply don't know what is being said there and make the wrong conclusions.

The only thing RFC4627 says about this is that "[a]n implementation
may set limits on the range of numbers."  That is very clear, on the
one hand, but it's been missed (as I described earlier, where an
implementor told a contributor that JSON supports only IEEE 754 64-bit
numbers).  It's easy to miss because anyone who knows JavaScript knows
JSON, right?  So a section with a provocative title calling out
differences between JS and JSON would probably help at least those who
would read the RFC.

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