Re: [review][JSON] Review of JSON starts today: Sept 14 - Sept 23

From: Vinnie Falco (vinnie.falco_at_[hidden])
Date: 2020-09-16 14:28:35

On Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 7:14 AM Rainer Deyke via Boost
<boost_at_[hidden]> wrote:
>    - The omission of binary serialization formats (CBOR et al) bothers
> me.  Not from a theoretical point of view, but because I have actual
> code that uses CBOR, and I won't be able to convert this code to
> Boost.JSON unless CBOR support is provided.

I've looked at the CBOR specification and some implementations in the
wild and these points stick out:

1. CBOR supports extensions, which cannot be represented in boost::json::value
2. CBOR also supports "binary" strings, which also cannot be
represented in boost::json::value
3. If boost.json's value container could hold these things, then it
would no longer serialize to standard JSON

Therefore, it seems to me that CBOR is not just a "binary
serialization format for JSON." It is in fact a completely different
format that only strongly resembles JSON. Or perhaps you could say it
is a superset of JSON. I think the best way to support this is as
follows:

1. Fork the Boost.JSON repository, rename it to Boost.CBOR
2. Add support for binary strings to the cbor::value type
3. Add support for extensions to the cbor::value type
4. Replace the parse, parser, serialize, and serializer interfaces
with CBOR equivalents
5. Propose this library as a new Boost library, with a separate review process

Then, we would have a first-class CBOR library whose interface and
implementation are optimized specifically for CBOR. Questions such as
what happens when you serialize a cbor::value to JSON would be moot.

This could be something that Krystian might take on as author and maintainer.

Thanks