Re: [Json] I-JSON Topic #2: Top-Level

Matthew Morley <matt@mpcm.com> Wed, 28 May 2014 19:57 UTC

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Date: Wed, 28 May 2014 15:57:03 -0400
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From: Matthew Morley <matt@mpcm.com>
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Subject: Re: [Json] I-JSON Topic #2: Top-Level
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On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 1:33 PM, Matt Miller <mamille2@cisco.com> wrote:

> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA512
>
> Hello All,
>
> After another round of discussion, it appears there is rough consensus
> for restricting the top-level in I-JSON to object or array.  The
> Chairs note consensus is rough here.
>
> Does anyone have additional arguments to make for or against what
> constitutes an I-JSON top-level?
>

No additional arguments from me, though I would prefer to see all types
supported at the top level... but instead I'll post an observation from the
RPC problem space.

Given that I-JSON limits the top level to be an object or an array, then
systems that generate results which are not those structures, therefore
require encapsulation to be communicated at all.

Meaning I can cannot respond with 42 and consider it a valid I-JSON (or
JSON).

Effectively this means all response data for such systems should be
encapsulated, including objects or arrays, into a known response structure
of some shape. The JSON-RPC specification does this with 'request' and
'response' objects, exactly for this reason and the desire to convey errors
and other data.

Thinking about RPC style protocols where local methods may be executed,
with the method and params then turned into I-JSON, then shipped off to a
processing end point, decoded, processed, re-encoded, sent back, decoded,
and finally received to be handled and understood.

In practice this means:
  - If the actual result of calling sum(40,2) is 42.
    - at the I-JSON layer it must look something like: {"result":42}.
  - If the result of calling object() is {};
    - at the I-JSON layer it must look something like: {"result":{}}.

With the top-level restriction in place, but without a standard structure:
  - non-structured data must be encapsulated: {"result":42}
  - structured data would be ambiguous: {} -or-  {"result":{}}

If you are in a system that uses function composition, it means you need to
bake this into your expected types/categories, or have a design that
handles and hides the encapsulation/decapsulation steps from the
composition reasoning portion. I don't have (or plan) such a system, so
this is outside my expertise, but imagine this being a limitation for those
that might have/want such a system. (?)

Though again, a limitation that can be overcome with standardized
encapsulation.

[...]

-- 
Matthew P. C. Morley