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Minimal JSON Type System
draft-boronine-teleport-00

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This is an older version of an Internet-Draft whose latest revision state is "Expired".
Author Alexei Boronine
Last updated 2014-11-09
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draft-boronine-teleport-00
Internet Engineering Task Force                         A. Boronine, Ed.
Internet-Draft
Intended status: Informational                         November 10, 2014
Expires: May 14, 2015

                        Minimal JSON Type System
                       draft-boronine-teleport-00

Abstract

   Teleport is a minimal type system designed as an extension of JSON.
   It comes with 10 types sufficient for basic use, but it defines a
   pattern for extending it with arbitrary types.  Teleport's type
   definitions are JSON values, for example, an array of strings is
   defined as {"Array": "String"}.

   Teleport implementations can be used for data serialization, input
   validation, for documenting JSON APIs and for building API clients.

   This document provides the mathematical basis of Teleport and can be
   used for implementing libraries.

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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   Drafts is at http://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on May 14, 2015.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2014 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents
   (http://trustee.ietf.org/license-info) in effect on the date of

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   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
   carefully, as they describe your rights and restrictions with respect
   to this document.  Code Components extracted from this document must
   include Simplified BSD License text as described in Section 4.e of
   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Conventions and Terminology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Syntax  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   3.  Type Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  JSON Schemas  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   5.  Mathematical Basis  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.1.  Concrete Types  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.2.  Generic Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   6.  Built-in Concrete Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   7.  Built-in Generic Types  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   8.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   9.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
   10. References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     10.1.  Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
     10.2.  Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Appendix A.  Mailing List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   6

1.  Introduction

   In Teleport, a type is a relation between a type definition and a
   value space.  For example:

      t("Integer") = {0, -1,  1, -2,  2, -3,  3, ...}

   Here "Integer" is a type definition and t("Integer") is the set of
   all values this type can take.  The t function is used to represent
   this relationship.

   Because Teleport is based on JSON, all value spaces are sets of JSON
   values.  More interestingly, type definitions are JSON values too,
   which makes it trivial to share them with other programs.

   Teleport's design goals is to be a natural extension of JSON, be
   extremely lightweight, and extendable not only with rich types but
   with high-level type system concepts.

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2.  Conventions and Terminology

   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 RFC 2119 [RFC2119].

   The terms "JSON", "JSON text", "JSON value", "member", "element",
   "object", "array", "number", "string", "boolean", "true", "false",
   and "null" in this document are to be interpreted as defined in RFC
   4627 [RFC4627].

2.1.  Syntax

   Throughout this document, an extended JSON syntax is used.  Unquoted
   strings are symbols representing JSON values, sets and functions.
   Also, the following set theory syntax is used:

   a :: A      Set A contains element a.

   D -> C      The set of functions that map values from set D to values
               from set C.

3.  Type Patterns

   Types defined simply by a string, like "Integer" above, are called
   concrete.  Teleport ships with 7 concrete types.

   A generic type maps a set of schemas to a set of value spaces.  Each
   pair in the mapping is called an instance.  For example, {"Array":
   "Integer"} is an instance of the Array type.

   Three generic types are provided: Array, Map and Struct.  Their
   precise definition is provided in the following sections, but these
   examples should be enough to understand how they work:

      ["foo", "bar"]       :: t({"Array": "String"})

      {"a": 1, "b": 2}     :: t({"Map": "Integer"})

      {"name": "Alexei"}   :: t({"Struct": {
                                   "required": {"name": "String"},
                                   "optional": {"age": "Integer"}})

4.  JSON Schemas

   "Schema", one of the build-in concrete types, is defined as the set
   of all known type definitions.  This is made possible by the fact

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   that type definitions are JSON values.  The Schema type is useful to
   specify APIs.  For example, to describe a function you can use this:

      t({"Struct": {
           "required": {
              "input": "Schema",
              "output": "Schema"}}}

5.  Mathematical Basis

   The set of all JSON values is called V.  A subset of V is called a
   value space and the set of all value spaces is called S.

      V = {null, true, false, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, ...}

      S = {{}, {null}, {null, true}, {null, ...}, ...}

   There is a certain function t that maps JSON values to value spaces.

      t :: (V -> S)

5.1.  Concrete Types

   x is of concrete type c if and only if

   1.  c is a string

   2.  x :: t(c).

5.2.  Generic Types

   x is of generic type g if and only if

   1.  g is a string

   2.  x :: t({g: p}) for some p

6.  Built-in Concrete Types

   t("JSON")       JSON

   t("Schema")     The set of all type definitions, including all
                   strings representing concrete types as well as every
                   instance of every generic type.

   t("Integer")    All numbers that don't have a fractional or exponent
                   part.

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   t("Float")      All numbers that have a fractional or exponent part.

   t("String")     All strings.

   t("Boolean")    All booleans.

   t("DateTime")   All strings that are valid according to ISO 8601
                   [ISO.8601.1988].

7.  Built-in Generic Types

   x :: t({"Array": p}) if and only if

      x is an array

      e :: t(p) for every element e in x

   x :: t({"Map": p}) if and only if

      x is an object

      v :: t(p) for every pair (k, v) in x

   x :: t({"Struct": p}) if and only if

      p is an object with two members: required and optional.  Both are
      objects and their names are disjoint, that is, they don't have a
      pair of members with the same name.

      x is an object.  The name of every member of p.required is also
      the name of a member of x.

      For every pair (k, v) in x, there is a pair (k, s) in either
      p.required or p.optional such that v :: t(s).

8.  IANA Considerations

   This memo includes no request to IANA.

9.  Security Considerations

   All drafts are required to have a security considerations section.
   See RFC 3552 [RFC3552] for a guide.

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10.  References

10.1.  Normative References

   [ISO.8601.1988]
              International Organization for Standardization, "Data
              elements and interchange formats - Information interchange
              - Representation of dates and times", ISO Standard 8601,
              June 1988.

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.

   [RFC4627]  Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for
              JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.

10.2.  Informative References

   [RFC3552]  Rescorla, E. and B. Korver, "Guidelines for Writing RFC
              Text on Security Considerations", BCP 72, RFC 3552, July
              2003.

Appendix A.  Mailing List

   Comments are solicited and should be addressed to the working group's
   mailing list at teleport-json@googlegroups.com and/or the author.

Author's Address

   Alexei Boronine (editor)

   Email: alexei@boronine.com

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