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CBOR data definition language: a notational convention to express CBOR data structures.
draft-greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl-00

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Author Bert Greevenbosch
Last updated 2014-01-01
Replaced by draft-ietf-cbor-cddl, draft-ietf-cbor-cddl, RFC 8610
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draft-greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl-00
Network Working Group                                    B. Greevenbosch
Internet-Draft                                       Huawei Technologies
Intended status: Informational                           January 2, 2014
Expires: July 6, 2014

 CBOR data definition language: a notational convention to express CBOR
                            data structures.
                draft-greevenbosch-appsawg-cbor-cddl-00

Abstract

   This document proposes a notational convention to express CBOR data
   structures.  Its main goal is to make it easy to express message
   structures for protocols that use CBOR.

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 July 6, 2014.

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
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   publication of this document.  Please review these documents
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   the Trust Legal Provisions and are provided without warranty as
   described in the Simplified BSD License.

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Table of Contents

   1.  Requirements notation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
   3.  Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
   4.  Notational conventions  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.1.  General conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.2.  Keywords for data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     4.3.  Arrays  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.4.  Structures  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     4.5.  Maps  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.6.  Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5
     4.7.  Tags  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   7
     4.8.  Optional variables  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   8
   5.  Examples  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.1.  Moves in a computer game  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   9
     5.2.  Fruit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  11
   6.  Philosophy  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   7.  Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   8.  Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  14
   9.  IANA considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   10. Acknowledgements  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   11. Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15
   Author's Address  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  15

1.  Requirements notation

   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].

2.  Introduction

   In this document, a notational convention to express CBOR [RFC7049]
   data structures is defined.

   The main goal for the convention is to provide a unified notation
   that can be used when defining protocols that use CBOR.

   The CBOR notational convention has the following goals:

   (G1)  Able to provide an unambiguous description of a CBOR data
         structures.

   (G2)  Easy for humans to read and write.

   (G3)  Flexibility to express the freedoms of choice in the CBOR data
         format.

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   (G4)  Possibility to restrict format choices where appropriate.

   (G5)  Able to express common CBOR data types and structures.

   (G6)  Human and machine readable and processable.

   (G7)  Usable for automatic verification of whether CBOR data is
         compliant to a predefined format.

3.  Definitions

   The following contains a list of used words in this document:

   "datatype"  defines the format of a variable.

   "variable"  a data component encoded in CBOR.

4.  Notational conventions

4.1.  General conventions

   The basic syntax is as follows:

   o  Each field has a name and a type.

   o  The name is written first, followed by a colon and then the type.
      The declarations is finished with a semicolon.  Whitespace may
      appear around the colon and semicolon, as well as in front of the
      name.

   o  The name does not appear in the actual CBOR encoding.

   o  If there is a following field, then the type of the previous field
      is followed by a whitespace and then the name of the following
      field.

   o  Comments are preceded by a '#' character.

4.2.  Keywords for data types

   The following keywords are used:

   "bool"  Boolean value (major type 7, additional information 20 or
      21).

   "bstr"  A byte string (major type 2).

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   "float(16)"  IEEE 754 half-precision float (major type 7, additional
      information 25).

   "float(32)"  IEEE 754 single-precision float (major type 7,
      additional information 26).

   "float(64)"  IEEE 754 double-precision float (major type 7,
      additional information 27).

   "int"  An unsigned integer (mayor type 0) or a negative integer
      (mayor type 1).

   "nint"  A negative integer (mayor type 1).

   "simple"  Simple value (mayor type 7, additional information 24).

   "tstr"  Text string (major type 3)

   "uint"  An unsigned integer (mayor type 0).

4.3.  Arrays

   Arrays can be of fixed length or of variable length.  Both fixed
   length and variable length arrays can be implemented as definite and
   indefinite length arrays.

   A fixed length array is is indicated by '[' and ']' characters behind
   its type, where number in between specifies the number of elements.

   A variable length array can be indicated with a "*" behind its type.

4.4.  Structures

   Structures are a logical grouping of CBOR fields.

   A structure has a name, which can be used as a value type for other
   fields.  The name is followed by a '{' character and the definitions
   of the variables inside of the structure.  The structure is closed by
   a '}' character.

   A structure MAY be encoded as an array, in which case its name is
   preceded by a '*' character.  Otherwise there is no CBOR encoding for
   the grouping.

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4.5.  Maps

   If an entity is a map (mayor type 5), it its datatype has the form

                                map( x, y )

   where the keys have datatype x, and the values a datatype y.

   If either x or y is unspecified (i.e. free to choose per entry), it
   is replaced by a '.'.

4.6.  Constants

   In some contexts, it is useful to give special values a name.  These
   constants are defined using the "const" construct.

   The "const" construct has the form

                       x : const( y ) {
                         ... bundle of constants ...
                       }

   where x is a name for the bundle of constants, and y is the datatype
   of the values.

   The bundle of constants consists of a list of name value pairs.  The
   list is encapsulated by a starting '{' and a closing '}' character.

   The name x defines a datatype that can be used for variables that
   take values from the const struct.

   For example, the "const" construct

                          Weekday const( uint ) {
                            Sunday    : 1;
                            Monday    : 2;
                            Tuesday   : 3;
                            Wednesday : 4;
                            Thursday  : 5;
                            Friday    : 6;
                            Saturday  : 7;
                          }

   defines integer values associated with the week days.

   An variable using this structure could be as follows:

                             weekday Weekday;

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   and would be encoded as an unsigned int.

   Since the weekdays are defined as part of a Weekday structure, they
   can also be referenced as "Weekday.Sunday", "Weekday.Monday", ...,
   "Weekday.Saturday".

   The definition could also have been as follows:

                             const {
                               Sunday    : 1;
                               Monday    : 2;
                               Tuesday   : 3;
                               Wednesday : 4;
                               Thursday  : 5;
                               Friday    : 6;
                               Saturday  : 7;
                             }

   In this case, the weekdays are just referred to as "Sunday",
   "Monday", ..., "Saturday".  However, since it has no name, the
   "const" construct cannot be used as a datatype for CBOR variables.
   Since this also makes the suffix "(uint)" superfluous, that suffix
   has been omitted.

   The definition of the datatype can also be left to the definition of
   the variable, in which case the datatype is encapsulated in round
   brackets and follows the datatype.  In this case the datatype is
   omitted in the definition of the constants.

   The following example illustrates this:

                         Weekday const {
                           Sunday    : 1;
                           Monday    : 2;
                           Tuesday   : 3;
                           Wednesday : 4;
                           Thursday  : 5;
                           Friday    : 6;
                           Saturday  : 7;
                         }

                         weekday Weekday( uint );

   TBD: there may be too many options for this.  We could consider
   omitting the "const( x )" syntax and mandate definition of the true
   datatype when defining a CBOR variable.

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4.7.  Tags

   A variable can have an associated CBOR tag (major type 6).  This is
   indicated by the tag encapsulated between the square brackets '[' and
   ']', just before the variable's datatype definition.

   For example, the following defines a positive bignum N:

                              N   : [2]bstr;

   The tag may also be indicated using values from the following "const"
   struct:

                            Tag const {
                              StandardDT :  0;
                              EpochDT    :  1;
                              PBigNum    :  2;
                              NBigNum    :  3;
                              DFraction  :  4;
                              BigFloat   :  5;
                              URI        : 32;
                              Base64URL  : 33;
                              Base64     : 34;
                              RegEx      : 35;
                              MimeMsg    : 36;
                            }

   We refer to [RFC7049] for the semantics of these tags.

   Using above constants, the definition of N can also be as follows:

                         N   : [Tag.PBigNum]bstr;

   A abbreviation of a tagged datatype can be defined using the
   following construct:

                                 x = [y]z;

   where x is the abbreviation, y is the tag and z is the datatype.

   For example, once again we can define N, now as follows:

                        BigNum = [Tag.PBigNum]bstr;
                        N      :      BigNum;

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4.8.  Optional variables

   There may be variables or structures whose inclusion is optional.  In
   this case, the name of the variable is preceded by a '?'.

   For example, the following defines a CBOR structure that is dependent
   on a boolean value.

           *MainStruct {
             whichForm     : bool;
             ?data1        : Form1;   # when whichForm == true
             ?data2        : Form2;   # when whichForm == false
           }

           Form1 {
             anInteger     : int;
             aTextString   : tstr;
           }

           Form2 {
             aFloat        : float(16);
             aBinaryString : bstr;
           }

   Notice that it is not possible to define the relationship between
   "whichForm" and inclusion of either "data1" or "data2" with CBOR
   content rules.  Such relationship should be otherwise communicated to
   the implementer, for example in the text of the specification that
   uses the CBOR structure, or with comments as was done in this
   example.

   Protocol designers should exhibit utmost care when defining CBOR
   structures with optional variables, especially when some of these
   variables have the same datatype.

   For example, the following CBOR data structure is ambiguous:

                    *DataStruct {
                      ?OptionalVariable        : uint;
                      MandatoryVariable        : uint;
                      ?AnotherOptionalVariable : uint;
                    }

   Since optional variables are often detected from their datatype, it
   is RECOMMENDED to not have a following of multiple variables of the
   same datatype, when some of these variables are optional.

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5.  Examples

   This section contains various examples of structures defined using
   the CBOR notational convention.

5.1.  Moves in a computer game

   A multiplayer computer game uses CBOR to exchange moves between the
   players.  To ensure a good game experience, the move information
   needs to be exchanged quickly and frequently.  Therefore, the game
   uses CBOR to send its information in a compact format.  Figure 1
   shows definition of the CBOR information exchange format.

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    *UpdateMsg {
      move_no        : uint;                  # increases for each move
      player_info    : PlayerInfo;            # general information
      moves          : Moves*;                # moves in this message
    }

    PlayerInfo {
      alias          : tstr;
      player_id      : uint;
      experience     : Experience;
      gold           : uint;
      supplies       : map( Supplies, uint );
      avg_strength   : float(16);
    }

    Experience const( uint ) {
      Beginner       : 0;
      Amateur        : 1;
      Professional   : 2;
      Expert         : 3;
    }

    Supplies const( uint ) {
      Wood           : 0;
      Iron           : 1;
      Grain          : 2;
    }

    *Moves {
      unit_id        : uint;
      unit_strength  : uint;                  # between 0 and 100
      source_pos     : uint[2];               # (x,y)
      target_pos     : uint[2];               # (x,y)
    }

     Figure 1: CBOR definition of an information exchange format for a
                               computer game

   Player "Johnny" does two moves.  The game server has assigned Johnny
   the ID 0x7a3b871f.  Johnny is an amateur player, and currently has
   1200 gold.  He has 13 units of wood, 70 units of iron and 29 units of
   grain.  He has several units, with a total average strength of 30.25.

   The units Johnny plays in move 250 are the unit with ID 19, strength
   20 from (5,7) to (6,9), and the unit with ID 87, strength 40 from
   (7,10) to (6,10).

   This information is coded in CBOR as depicted in Figure 2.

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   9F
      18 FA                # move 250
      66 4A 6F 68 6E 6E 79 # "Johnny"
      1A 7A 3B 87 1F       # player_id
      01                   # experience, "amateur"
      19 04 B0             # 1200 gold as uint
      A3                   # begin map "supplies" with 3 elements
         00                # "wood":
            0C             # 13 as uint
         01                # "iron":
            18 86          # 70 as uint
         02                # "grain":
            18 1D          # 29 as uint
      F9 4F 90             # average strength 30.25 half-precision float
      9F                   # indefinite length "moves" array
         84                # 4-element array Moves
            13             # unit id 19 as uint
            14             # strength 20 as uint
            82             # 2-element array source_pos
               05          # source_pos.x=5
               07          # source_pos.y=7
            82             # 2-element array target_pos
               06          # target_pos.x=6
               09          # target_pos.y=9
         84                # 4-element array Moves
            18 57          # unit id 87
            18 28          # strength 40
            82             # 2-element array source_pos
               07          # source_pos.x=7
               0a          # source_pos.y=10
            82             # 2-element array target_pos
               06          # target_pos.x=6
               0a          # target_pos.y=10
         FF                # end of "moves" array
      FF

                 Figure 2: CBOR instance for game example

5.2.  Fruit

   Figure 3 contains an example for a CBOR structure that contains
   information about fruit.

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   fruitlist              : Fruit*;

   *Fruit {
     name                 : tstr;
     colour               : Colour[];
     avg_weight           : float( 16 );
     price                : uint;
     international_names  : map( Lang, tstr );
     rfu                  : bstr;              # reserved for future use
   }

   Colour const( uint ) {
     black                :    0;
     red                  :    1;
     green                :    2;
     yellow               :    3;
     blue                 :    4;
     magenta              :    5;
     cyan                 :    6;
     white                :    7;
     orange               :    8;
     pink                 :    9;
     purple               :   10;
     brown                :   11;
     grey                 :   12;
   }

   Lang const( tstr ) {
     Chinese              : "CN";
     Dutch                : "NL";
     English              : "EN";
     French               : "FR";
     German               : "DE";
   }

                     Figure 3: Example CBOR structure

   For example, apples can be red, yellow or green.  They have an
   average weight of 0.195kg and a price of 30 cents.  Chinese for
   "apple" in UTF-8 is [ E8 8B B9 E6 9E 9C ], the Dutch word is "appel"
   and the French word "pomme".

   For simplicity, let's assume that the colour of oranges can only be
   orange.  They have an average weight of 0.230kg and a price of 50
   cents.  Chinese for "orange" in UTF-8 is [ E6 A9 99 E5 AD 90 ], the
   Dutch word is "sinaasappel" and the German word "Orange".

   This information would be encoded as depicted in Figure 4.

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   9F                              # indefinite length "fruitlist" array
      86                           # First "Fruit" instance, 6 elements
         65                        # text string "name" length 5
            61 70 70 6C 65         # "apple"
         83                        # array for "Colour", 3 elements
            01                     # "red" as uint
            02                     # "green" as uint
            03                     # "yellow" as uint
         F9                        # Floating point half precision
            32 3D                  # "avg_weight" 0.195
         18 1E                     # "price" 30 as uint
         A3                        # map "international_names", 3 pairs
            62 43 4E               # text string length 2, "CN"
            66 E8 8B B9 E6 9E 9C   # Chinese word for apple
            62 4E 4C               # "NL"
            65 61 70 70 65 6C      # "appel"
            62 46 52               # "FR"
            65 70 6F 6D 6D 65      # "pomme"
         40                        # byte string "rfu", 0 bytes length
      86                           # Second "Fruit" instance
         66                        # text string "name" length 6
            6F 72 61 6E 67 65      # "orange"
         81                        # array for "Colour", 3 elements
            08                     # "orange" as uint
         F9                        # Floating point half precision
            33 5C                  # "avg_weight" 0.230
         18 32                     # "price" 50 as uint
         A3                        # map "international_names", 3 pairs
            62 43 4E               # text string length 2, "CN"
            66 E6 A9 99 E5 AD 90   # Chinese word for orange
            62 4E 4C               # "NL"
            6B 73 69 6E 61 61 73 61 70 70 65 6C # "sinaasappel"
            62 44 45               # "DE"
            66 4F 72 61 6E 67 65   # "Orange"
         40                        # byte string "rfu", 0 bytes length
      FF                           # end of "fruitlist" array

                      Figure 4: Example CBOR instance

   Notice that if the "Fruit" structure did not have the preceding "*",
   the two "Fruit" instance arrays would have been omitted.  In
   addition, the "fruitlist" array would have had 12 elements instead of
   2.  (Although for "fruitlist" the indefinite length approach was
   chosen, such that the number of elements is not explicitely
   signalled.)

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6.  Philosophy

   The CBOR notational convention can be used to efficiently define the
   layout of CBOR data.

   In addition, it has been specified such that a machine can verify
   whether or not CBOR data is compliant to its definition.

   The matter in how far the data description must be enforced by an
   application is left solely to the implementers and specifiers of that
   application.  For example, an application may decide not to verify
   the data structure at all, and use the CBOR content rules solely as a
   means to indicate the structure of the data to the programmer.  On
   the other hand, the application may also implement a verification
   method that goes as far as verifying that variables that depend on
   the "const" construction actually only take values defined in that
   construction.

   The content rules do not specify the length of a CBOR integer.  But
   this can be done in the text specification of a protocol that uses
   CBOR.

7.  Open Issues

   At least the following issues need further consideration:

   o  Whether or not to allow optional variables.

   o  Removal of some "const" construct possibilities.

   o  Definition of constants for missing tags.

   o  More extensive security considerations.

   o  The various flavours of consts and tags increase implementation
      complexity of a verifier.  It is to be considered which flavours
      provide enough benefit to justify their implementation complexity.

   o  For optional inclusion, one could define structures such as
      "switch"/"case".  However, this would again increase complexity,
      and would cater only for cases where inclusion is dependent on a
      simple variable.

8.  Security considerations

   This document presents a content rules language for expressing CBOR
   data structures.  As such, it does not bring any security issues on

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   itself, although specification of protocols that use CBOR naturally
   need security analysis when defined.

9.  IANA considerations

   This document does not require any IANA registrations.

10.  Acknowledgements

   For this draft, there has been inspiration from the C and Pascal
   languages, MPEG's conventions for describing structures in the ISO
   base media file format, and Andrew Lee Newton's "JSON Content Rules"
   draft.

   Useful feedback came from Carsten Bormann.

11.  Normative References

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

   [RFC7049]  Bormann, C. and P. Hoffman, "Concise Binary Object
              Representation (CBOR)", RFC 7049, October 2013.

Author's Address

   Bert Greevenbosch
   Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
   Huawei Industrial Base
   Bantian, Longgang District
   Shenzhen  518129
   P.R. China

   Email: bert.greevenbosch@huawei.com

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