Simple Cloud Interoperable Jason Encoding for REST Web Services (SCIJER) Bindings
draft-hallambaker-scijer-00

Abstract

SCIJER (pronounced skyjer) specifies a mapping of data types to JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) encoding. The JSON specification defines encodings for integers, strings, arrays and objects. This document specifies a mapping between JSON encoding and an extended set of types.

Status of This Memo

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This Internet-Draft will expire on January 30, 2013.

Copyright Notice

Copyright (c) 2012 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the document authors. All rights reserved.

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Table of Contents

• 1. Definitions
• 1.1. Requirements Language
• 1.2. Defined Terms
• 2. Introduction
• 3. Bindings
• 3.1. Object
• 3.2. Serializable
• 3.2.1. Array
• 3.2.2. List
• 3.3. Boolean
• 3.4. Integer
• 3.5. Floating Point
• 3.6. String
• 3.6.1. URI
• 3.6.2. Label
• 3.6.3. Name
• 3.7. Enumeration
• 3.8. Time
• 3.8.1. DateTime
• 3.8.2. ElapsedTime
• 3.9. Binary
• 3.10.
• 4. Security Considerations
• 5. IANA Considerations
• 6. Acknowledgements
• 7. References
• Author's Address

1. Definitions

1.1. Requirements Language

The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in [RFC2119].

1.2. Defined Terms

The following terms are used in this document:

2. Introduction

JSON is a format for encoding data structures in UTF8 text format with similar capabilities to XML and ASN.1 but with lower coding overhead. Unlike XML and ASN.1, JSON does not have a schema language.

This draft defines a mapping between JSON data types and programming language types that MAY be used as the basis for a schema language definition.

3. Bindings

Specify conversions between JSON encoding and C, C# and Java types.

3.1. Object

JSON

C

C#

Java

3.2. Serializable

3.2.1. Array

JSON

C

C#

Java

3.2.2. List

JSON

C

C#

Java

3.3. Boolean

JSON

true | false

C

int

C#

bool

C#

boolean

3.4. Integer

JSON

number without decimal point

C, C#, Java

int or long

3.5. Floating Point

JSON

number with decimal point

C, C#, Java

float or double

3.6. String

The String type maps to the JSON string encoding. The following subtypes are defined to represent commonly used syntactic restrictions.

JSON

String encoding

C

char * [NB must use appropriate wrappers to encode/decode UTF8]

C#, Java

String

• URI
• Label
• Name

3.6.1. URI

A URI is a string that contains a URI as specified in [RFC3986].

3.6.2. Label

A label is a string that MUST NOT contain any ASCII character other than digits (0-9), alphabetic (a-z, A-Z), underscore or dash. All other UNICODE characters are permitted.

The Label type provide a means of avoiding content injection attacks by ensuring that a field does not contain characters commonly used as control characters in scripting languages.

3.6.3. Name

A Name is a sequence of Labels separated by period characters '.'.

Note that the syntactic restriction of a Name is not exactly the same as the restriction on a DNS address.

3.7. Enumeration

An enumeration is encoded as a Label.

3.8. Time

SSCIJER supports two encodings

DateTime

A string encoded in [RFC3339] format. This provides a human readable representation.

ElapsedTime

A number that represents the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 0001 at 00:00:00.000 in the Gregorian calendar. Decimals MAY be used to represent time intervals of less than a second.

Conversion between the two encodings MUST be informed by the times at which leap seconds were introduced into the UTC coding. This creates a challenge in the case that a device only has access to time in one form but not the other.

In order to address this problem, implementations MUST accept time values encoded in either format and SHOULD emit the encoding specified in the schema.

3.8.1. DateTime

JSON

String [Encoded in [RFC3339] format.]

C

System dependent

C#

DateTime

Java

Date

Represents a date and time in the Gregorian callendar using the format described in [RFC3339].

3.8.2. ElapsedTime

JSON

Number

C

System dependent

C#

DateTime

Java

Date

A number that represents the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 0001 at 00:00:00.000 in the Gregorian calendar. Decimals MAY be used to represent time intervals of less than a second.

3.9. Binary

JSON

String [Base64 encoding of binary data]

C

{unsigned char *, length}

C#, Java

byte []

3.10.

4. Security Considerations

5. IANA Considerations

6. Acknowledgements

The name of this draft was inspired by Mark Nottingham.

7. References

Author's Address