Internet DRAFT - draft-saintandre-json-namespaces
draft-saintandre-json-namespaces
Network Working Group P. Saint-Andre
Internet-Draft J. Hildebrand
Intended status: Informational M. Miller
Expires: April 26, 2012 Cisco
October 24, 2011
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Namespaces
draft-saintandre-json-namespaces-00
Abstract
This document defines a convention for namespaced variable names in
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) data.
Status of this Memo
This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
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material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
This Internet-Draft will expire on April 26, 2012.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Namespace Convention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. When and How to Use JSON Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Appendix A. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
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1. Introduction
JavaScript Object Notation [JSON] is a text format for the
serialization of structured data, derived from the object literals of
the JavaScript programming language. Unlike the Extensible Markup
Language [XML], JSON does not provide methods for qualifying variable
names, as XML does for elements and attributes [XML-NAMES]. However,
in certain circumstances such namespaces can be useful. Therefore,
this document defines a convention for namespaced variable names in
JSON data.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[RFC2119].
Feedback is welcome on the apps-discuss@ietf.org mailing list.
2. Namespace Convention
Various approaches have been proposed to namespaces (or "distributed
extensibility") in JSON, from a centralized registry of variable
names to prefixing with the "reverse domain name" of the namespace
owner (e.g., "com.example.foo"). All of these approaches are
preferable to use of the "x-" prefix [XDASH] or a similar
construction, since they provides attribution and traceability for
each namespace. The convention described here follows "Clark
Notation" [CLARK] by preceding a variable name with a Uniform
Resource Identifier [URI] enclosed in curly brackets ('{' and '}').
The use of URIs provides improved re-use of data models across
existing representations, especially with XML when qualified by XML
namespaces.
In JSON, a variable name that is namespaced in this way is the
"string" production when appearing as the first part of the "member"
production, as those productions are defined in [JSON]. An example
follows.
{http://example.com/foo}bar
Namespace names MUST NOT include the characters '{' and '}'.
3. When and How to Use JSON Namespaces
The convention described here is not intended for use in "standalone"
JSON objects, especially those defined by a JSON schema
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[JSON-SCHEMA]. Instead, it is intended for use when a particular
variable is likely to be re-used or interleaved within data that
represents other JSON objects. The following example shows a
namespaced variable name used within an OAuth access token [OAUTH].
{
"access_token":"2YotnFZFEjr1zCsicMWpAA",
"token_type":"example",
"expires_in":3600,
"refresh_token":"tGzv3JOkF0XG5Qx2TlKWIA",
"{http://example.com/foo}bar":"baz"
}
Namespaces MUST NOT be used for core JSON attributes (such as 'char'
and 'number').
An application MUST ignore namespaced variables that it does not
understand, where by "ignore" is meant "discard the data without
acting upon it or returning an error to the sender".
4. Security Considerations
This convention introduces no security concerns beyond those
described in [JSON].
5. IANA Considerations
This document requests no actions of the IANA.
6. References
6.1. Normative References
[JSON] Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
6.2. Informative References
[CLARK] Clark, J., "Clark Notation", February 1999,
<http://www.jclark.com/xml/xmlns.htm>.
[JSON-SCHEMA]
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Zyp, K. and G. Court, "A JSON Media Type for Describing
the Structure and Meaning of JSON Documents",
draft-zyp-json-schema-03 (work in progress),
November 2010.
[OAUTH] Hammer-Lahav, E., Recordon, D., and D. Hardt, "The OAuth
2.0 Authorization Protocol", draft-ietf-oauth-v2-22 (work
in progress), September 2011.
[URI] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, January 2005.
[XDASH] Saint-Andre, P., Crocker, D., and M. Nottingham,
"Deprecating Use of the "X-" Prefix in Application
Protocols", draft-ietf-appsawg-xdash-02 (work in
progress), October 2011.
[XML] Maler, E., Yergeau, F., Sperberg-McQueen, C., Paoli, J.,
and T. Bray, "Extensible Markup Language (XML) 1.0 (Fifth
Edition)", World Wide Web Consortium Recommendation REC-
xml-20081126, November 2008,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/REC-xml-20081126>.
[XML-NAMES]
Thompson, H., Hollander, D., Layman, A., Bray, T., and R.
Tobin, "Namespaces in XML 1.0 (Third Edition)", World Wide
Web Consortium Recommendation REC-xml-names-20091208,
December 2009,
<http://www.w3.org/TR/2009/REC-xml-names-20091208>.
Appendix A. Acknowledgements
This document has benefited from texts about distributed
extensibility posted on the Internet by David Baron, Tim Bray, James
Clark, Yaron Goland, Joe Gregoria, Mike Hanson, Jack Moffitt, Mark
Nottingham, and Simon St. Laurent.
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Authors' Addresses
Peter Saint-Andre
Cisco
1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600
Denver, CO 80202
USA
Phone: +1-303-308-3282
Email: psaintan@cisco.com
Joe Hildebrand
Cisco
1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600
Denver, CO 80202
USA
Email: jhildebr@cisco.com
Matt Miller
Cisco
1899 Wynkoop Street, Suite 600
Denver, CO 80202
USA
Phone: +1-303-308-3282
Email: mamille2@cisco.com
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