Internet Engineering Task Force P. Bryan, Ed.
Internet-Draft ForgeRock US, Inc.
Intended status: Informational K. Zyp
Expires: December 11, 2011 SitePen (USA)
June 9, 2011
JSON Pointer
draft-pbryan-zyp-json-pointer-00
Abstract
JSON Pointer provides a syntax for identifying a specific node within
a JSON document.
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
Task Force (IETF). Note that other groups may also distribute
working documents as Internet-Drafts. The list of current Internet-
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 December 11, 2011.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2011 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
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.
Bryan & Zyp Expires December 11, 2011 [Page 1]
Internet-Draft JSON Pointer June 2011
Table of Contents
1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
2. Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
3. Syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
4. Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5. Error Handling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6. Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
7. IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
8. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9. References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9.1. Normative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
9.2. Informative References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Appendix A. Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix B. Changelog . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Appendix C. Open Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Authors' Addresses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Bryan & Zyp Expires December 11, 2011 [Page 2]
Internet-Draft JSON Pointer June 2011
1. Introduction
This Internet-Draft proposes JSON Pointer, a syntax for identifying a
specific node within a JSON [RFC4627] document. The syntax is
intended to be expressed in a JSON string value or in a URL fragment
identifier for a resource with a JSON representation.
2. Conventions
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].
3. Syntax
A JSON Pointer is a sequence of zero or more property reference
tokens, starting with and separated by the "/" (\x2F) character.
Each property reference token is a sequence of unreserved characters
or escape sequences per [RFC2396].
pointer = "/" 0*1( token *( "/" token ) )
token = 1*<URI unreserved character or escape sequence>
It is an error condition if a JSON Pointer does not conform to this
syntax.
4. Evaluation
A JSON Pointer is evaluated against a target JSON document and yields
a target node. Evaluation begins with the initial target node being
the JSON document itself. For each property reference token, a new
target node is selected from the current target node.
If the current target node is a JSON object, then the new target is
the value of the property with the name identified by the next
property reference token. If the current target node is a JSON
array, then the new target is the value of the item in the array with
the zero-based index identified by the next property reference token
(which MUST be a non-negative integer number value).
It is an error condition if a property reference token fails to
resolve a value for the current target node. The target node is
successively updated for each property reference token until the
entire sequence of property reference tokens is evaluated.
Bryan & Zyp Expires December 11, 2011 [Page 3]
Internet-Draft JSON Pointer June 2011
Property names SHOULD be URI encoded per [RFC2396]. In particular,
any "/" character in a property name MUST be encoded as "%2F" to
avoid being interpreted as a property reference token separator.
5. Error Handling
In the event of an error condition, evaluation of the JSON Pointer
fails to complete.
6. Acknowledgements
This specification originated from the [JSON Schema] specification.
7. IANA Considerations
This draft includes no request to IANA.
8. Security Considerations
This draft includes no security considerations.
9. References
9.1. Normative References
[RFC2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997.
[RFC2396] Berners-Lee, T., Fielding, R., and L. Masinter, "Uniform
Resource Identifiers (URI): Generic Syntax", RFC 2396,
August 1998.
[RFC4627] Crockford, D., "The application/json Media Type for
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON)", RFC 4627, July 2006.
9.2. Informative References
[JSON Schema]
Zyp, K. and G. Court, "A JSON Media Type for Describing
the Structure and Meaning of JSON Documents",
November 2010,
<http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-zyp-json-schema-03>.
Bryan & Zyp Expires December 11, 2011 [Page 4]
Internet-Draft JSON Pointer June 2011
Appendix A. Examples
For example, for the following JSON representation:
{
"foo": {
"anArray": [
{ "prop": 44 }
],
"another prop": {
"baz": "A string"
}
}
}
The following JSON Pointers would be resolved:
JSON Pointer resolution
------------------- ----------
/ self, the root of the resource itself
/foo the object referred to by the foo property
/foo/another%20prop the object referred to by the "another prop"
property of the object referred to by the
"foo" property
/foo/another%20prop/baz the string referred to by the value of "baz"
property of the "another prop" property of
the object referred to by the "foo" property
/foo/anArray/0 the first object in the "anArray" array
Appendix B. Changelog
draft-00
Initial draft.
Appendix C. Open Issues
TBD
Bryan & Zyp Expires December 11, 2011 [Page 5]
Internet-Draft JSON Pointer June 2011
Authors' Addresses
Paul C. Bryan (editor)
ForgeRock US, Inc.
201 NE Park Plaza Drive Suite 196
Vancouver, WA 98684
USA
Phone: +1 604 783 1481
Email: paul.bryan@forgerock.com
Kris Zyp
SitePen (USA)
530 Lytton Avenue
Palo Alto, CA 94301
USA
Phone: +1 650 968 8787
Email: kris@sitepen.com
Bryan & Zyp Expires December 11, 2011 [Page 6]