Network Working Group C. Bormann
Internet-Draft Universität Bremen TZI
Intended status: Informational 6 October 2021
Expires: 9 April 2022
Application-Oriented Literals in CBOR Extended Diagnostic Notation
draft-bormann-cbor-edn-literals-00
Abstract
The Concise Binary Object Representation, CBOR (RFC 8949) defines a
"diagnostic notation" in order to be able to converse about CBOR data
items without having to resort to binary data.
This document specifies how to add application-oriented extensions to
the diagnostic notation. It then defines two such extensions for the
use of CBOR diagnostic notation with CoRAL and Constrained Resource
Identifiers (draft-ietf-core-coral, draft-ietf-core-href).
Note
This note is to be removed before publishing as an RFC.
The content of this draft may preferably be distributed to a number
of different documents. This is to be decided.
Status of This Memo
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Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2021 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
document authors. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2. Application-Oriented Extension Literals . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3. The "cri" Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. The "dt" Extension . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
5. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Security considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
7.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Author's Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1. Introduction
For the Concise Binary Object Representation, CBOR, Section 8 of
[RFC8949] defines a "diagnostic notation" in order to be able to
converse about CBOR data items without having to resort to binary
data. Diagnostic notation is based on JSON, with extensions for
representing CBOR constructs such as binary data and tags.
(Standardizing this together with the actual interchange format does
not serve to create another interchange format, but enables the use
of a shared diagnostic notation in tools for and documents about
CBOR.)
This document specifies how to add application-oriented extensions to
the diagnostic notation. It then defines two such extensions for the
use of CBOR diagnostic notation with CoRAL and Constrained Resource
Identifiers [I-D.ietf-core-coral] [I-D.ietf-core-href].
2. Application-Oriented Extension Literals
This document extends the syntax used in diagnostic notation for byte
string literals to also be available for application-oriented
extensions.
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As per Section 8 of [RFC8949], the diagnostic notation can notate
byte strings in a number of [RFC4648] base encodings, where the
encoded text is enclosed in single quotes, prefixed by an identifier
(>h< for base16, >b32< for base32, >h32< for base32hex, >b64< for
base64 or base64url).
This syntax can be thought to establish a name space, with the names
"h", "b32", "h32", and "b64" taken, but other names being
unallocated. The present specification defines additional names for
this namespace, which we call _application-extension identifiers_.
For the quoted string, the same rules apply as for byte strings. In
particular, the escaping rules of JSON strings are applied
equivalently for application-oriented extensions, e.g., \\ stands for
a single backslash and \' stands for a single quote.
An application-extension identifier is a name consisting of a lower-
case ASCII letter (a-z) and zero or more additional ASCII characters
that are either lower-case letters or digits (a-z0-9).
Application-extension identifiers are registered in a registry
(Section 5). Prefixing a single-quoted string, an application-
extension identifier is used to build an application-oriented
extension literal, which stands for a CBOR data item the value of
which is derived from the text given in the single-quoted string
using a procedure defined in the specification for an application-
extension identifier.
Examples for application-oriented extensions to CBOR diagnostic
notation can be found in the following sections.
3. The "cri" Extension
The application-extension identifier "cri" is used to notate a
Constrained Resource Identifier literal as per [I-D.ietf-core-href].
The text of the literal is a URI Reference as per [RFC3986] or an IRI
Reference as per [RFC3987].
The value of the literal is a CRI that can be converted to the text
of the literal using the procedure of Section 6.1 of
[I-D.ietf-core-href]. Note that there may be more than one CRI that
can be converted to the URI/IRI given; implementations are expected
to favor the simplest variant available and make non-surprising
choices otherwise.
As an example, the CBOR diagnostic notation
cri'https://example.com/bottarga/shaved'
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is equivalent to
[-4, ["example", "com"], ["bottarga", "shaved"]]
4. The "dt" Extension
The application-extension identifier "dt" is used to notate a date/
time literal that can be used as an Epoch-Based Date/Time as per
Section 3.4.2 of [RFC8949].
The text of the literal is a Standard Date/Time String as per
Section 3.4.1 of [RFC8949].
The value of the literal is a number representing the result of a
conversion of the given Standard Date/Time String to an Epoch-Based
Date/Time. If fractional seconds are given in the text (production
time-fraction in Appendix A of [RFC3339]), the value is a floating-
point number; the value is an integer number otherwise.
As an example, the CBOR diagnostic notation
dt'1969-07-21T02:56:16Z'
is equivalent to
-14159024
5. IANA Considerations
IANA is requested to create a registry [[where?]] for application-
extension identifiers, with the initial content shown in Table 1.
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+=======================+=====================+===========+
| application-extension | description | reference |
| identifier | | |
+=======================+=====================+===========+
| h | Reserved | RFC8949 |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-----------+
| b32 | Reserved | RFC8949 |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-----------+
| h32 | Reserved | RFC8949 |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-----------+
| b64 | Reserved | RFC8949 |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-----------+
| cri | Constrained | RFCthis |
| | Resource Identifier | |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-----------+
| dt | Date/Time | RFCthis |
+-----------------------+---------------------+-----------+
Table 1: Initial Content of application extension
identifier registry
// (Define policy; detailed template)
6. Security considerations
The security considerations of [RFC8949] and [RFC8610] apply.
// Anything else meaningful to say here?
7. References
7.1. Normative References
[I-D.ietf-core-href]
Bormann, C. and H. Birkholz, "Constrained Resource
Identifiers", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-
ietf-core-href-06, 25 July 2021,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-core-href-
06.txt>.
[RFC3339] Klyne, G. and C. Newman, "Date and Time on the Internet:
Timestamps", RFC 3339, DOI 10.17487/RFC3339, July 2002,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3339>.
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[RFC3986] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax", STD 66,
RFC 3986, DOI 10.17487/RFC3986, January 2005,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3986>.
[RFC3987] Duerst, M. and M. Suignard, "Internationalized Resource
Identifiers (IRIs)", RFC 3987, DOI 10.17487/RFC3987,
January 2005, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc3987>.
[RFC8610] Birkholz, H., Vigano, C., and C. Bormann, "Concise Data
Definition Language (CDDL): A Notational Convention to
Express Concise Binary Object Representation (CBOR) and
JSON Data Structures", RFC 8610, DOI 10.17487/RFC8610,
June 2019, <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8610>.
[RFC8949] Bormann, C. and P. Hoffman, "Concise Binary Object
Representation (CBOR)", STD 94, RFC 8949,
DOI 10.17487/RFC8949, December 2020,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc8949>.
7.2. Informative References
[I-D.ietf-core-coral]
Hartke, K., "The Constrained RESTful Application Language
(CoRAL)", Work in Progress, Internet-Draft, draft-ietf-
core-coral-03, 9 March 2020,
<https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-ietf-core-coral-
03.txt>.
[RFC4648] Josefsson, S., "The Base16, Base32, and Base64 Data
Encodings", RFC 4648, DOI 10.17487/RFC4648, October 2006,
<https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc4648>.
Acknowledgements
The concept of application-oriented extensions to diagnostic
notation, as well as the definition for the "dt" extension were
inspired by the CoRAL work by Klaus Hartke.
Author's Address
Carsten Bormann
Universität Bremen TZI
Postfach 330440
D-28359 Bremen
Germany
Phone: +49-421-218-63921
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Email: cabo@tzi.org
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