JSON Datatype (through BSON)

[bernkastel02]

RFC0001 - JSON Datatype (through BSON)

RFC Stage: Stage 1

• Start Date: 03/02/2021
• RFC Pull Request: (none, until proper stage)
• Champions: @Ausakura

Introduction and Summary

BSON exists as a sustainable datatype for storing JSON as binary, serializing it into a format we can store at pure ease. JSON has proven to be an important storage necessity for things like settings, configuration and more.

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Adding support for JSON through this format will allow users to store JSON objects and values sustainably, without having to use an external format for such.

Explanation

BSON examples are well provided as is, and can be used by individual database implementations to create their own parser (unless they use a module in their individual languages)

For example, this is a BSON data structure.

 Document Size      Type   Field Name       Value Size    Value            Null Terminator   End of Object
 16 00 00 00        02     68 65 6C 6C 6F   06 00 00 00   77 6F 72 6C 64   00                00
 0                  4      5                10            14               19                20

This can be deserialized into the provided JSON structure:

{
    "hello": "world"
}

With this nice, simple look; It would fit right in with how data is formatted.

Pseudo-code

# BSON Example
  \x16\x00\x00\x00               // total document size
  \x02                           // 0x02 = type String
  hello\x00                      // field name
  \x06\x00\x00\x00world\x00      // field value (size of value, value, null terminator)
  \x00                           // 0x00 = type EOO ('end of object')

Rationale and Alternatives

• Why is this design the best in the space of possible designs?

  • While other provided options exist, we can consider the other given options, our options being UBJSON and BSON.

• What other designs have been considered and what is the rationale for not choosing them?

  • UBJSON is a proposed successor, adding better support for the JSON specifications, and with an easier implementation. Could be used as an alternative?

• What is the impact of not doing this?

  • Developers won't have a sustainable way of storing things like JSON or formatted structures of this type.

Metadata

Current Implementations

This section is reserved for whenever a database implementation adds it.

Timeline

3/2/2020 - Created RFC

[SMJSGaming]

Seems like a good idea to add large scale support for object storing. Personally I think BJSON would be the better option here as it should in theory be closer to the format of all the other implemented types/blocks.

[bernkastel02]

UBJSON would work too, if it's actually any close to finished.

[bernkastel02]

oh

guess that's a no then; guess we should consider removing it as an option for an alternative

[bernkastel02]

it's probably fine to move this to stage 1 considering all aspects of it are defined and it's been nearly a week since it's creation