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IETF RFC 7464
Last modified on Wednesday, February 25th, 2015
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Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) N. Williams
Request for Comments: 7464 Cryptonector
Category: Standards Track February 2015
ISSN: 2070-1721
JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Text Sequences
 Abstract
This document describes the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) text
sequence format and associated media type "application/json-seq". A
JSON text sequence consists of any number of JSON texts, all encoded
in UTF-8, each prefixed by an ASCII Record Separator (0x1E), and each
ending with an ASCII Line Feed character (0x0A).
Status of This Memo
This is an Internet Standards Track document.
This document is a product of the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF). It represents the consensus of the IETF community. It has
received public review and has been approved for publication by the
Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG). Further information on
Internet Standards is available in Section 2 of RFC 5741.
Information about the current status of this document, any errata,
and how to provide feedback on it may be obtained at
http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7464.
Copyright Notice
Copyright (c) 2015 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.
Williams Standards Track PAGE 1 
RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
Table of Contents
1. Introduction and Motivation .....................................2
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document ..........................2
2. JSON Text Sequence Format .......................................3
2.1. JSON Text Sequence Parsing .................................3
2.2. JSON Text Sequence Encoding ................................4
2.3. Incomplete/Invalid JSON Texts Need Not Be Fatal ............4
2.4. Top-Level Values: numbers, true, false, and null ...........5
3. Security Considerations .........................................6
4. IANA Considerations .............................................6
5. Normative References ............................................7
Acknowledgements ...................................................8
Author's Address ...................................................8
1. Introduction and Motivation
The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) [RFC 7159] is a very handy
serialization format. However, when serializing a large sequence of
values as an array, or a possibly indeterminate-length or never-
ending sequence of values, JSON becomes difficult to work with.
Consider a sequence of one million values, each possibly one kilobyte
when encoded -- roughly one gigabyte. It is often desirable to
process such a dataset in an incremental manner without having to
first read all of it before beginning to produce results.
Traditionally, the way to do this with JSON is to use a "streaming"
parser, but these are not widely available, widely used, or easy to
use.
This document describes the concept and format of "JSON text
sequences", which are specifically not JSON texts themselves but are
composed of (possible) JSON texts. JSON text sequences can be parsed
(and produced) incrementally without having to have a streaming
parser (nor streaming encoder).
1.1. Conventions Used in This Document
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
"SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "NOT RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and
"OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in
[RFC 2119].
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RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
2. JSON Text Sequence Format
Two different sets of ABNF rules are provided for the definition of
JSON text sequences: one for parsers and one for encoders. Having
two different sets of rules permits recovery by parsers from
sequences where some of the elements are truncated for whatever
reason. The syntax for parsers is specified in terms of octet
strings that are then interpreted as JSON texts, if possible. The
syntax for encoders, on the other hand, assumes that sequence
elements are not truncated.
JSON text sequences MUST use UTF-8 encoding; other encodings of JSON
(i.e., UTF-16 and UTF-32) MUST NOT be used.
2.1. JSON Text Sequence Parsing
The ABNF [RFC 5234] for the JSON text sequence parser is as given in
Figure 1.
input-JSON-sequence = *(1*RS possible-JSON)
RS = %x1E; "record separator" (RS), see RFC 20
; Also known as: Unicode Character INFORMATION SEPARATOR
; TWO (U+001E)
possible-JSON = 1*(not-RS); attempt to parse as UTF-8-encoded
; JSON text (see RFC 7159)
not-RS = %x00-1d / %x1f-ff; any octets other than RS
Figure 1: JSON Text Sequence ABNF
In prose: a series of octet strings, each containing any octet other
than a record separator (RS) (0x1E) [RFC 20]. All octet strings are
preceded by an RS byte. Each octet string in the sequence is to be
parsed as a JSON text in the UTF-8 encoding [RFC 3629].
If parsing of such an octet string as a UTF-8-encoded JSON text
fails, the parser SHOULD nonetheless continue parsing the remainder
of the sequence. The parser can report such failures to
applications, which might then choose to terminate parsing of a
sequence. Multiple consecutive RS octets do not denote empty
sequence elements between them and can be ignored.
This document does not define a mechanism for reliably identifying
text sequence by position (for example, when sending individual
elements of an array as unique text sequences). For applications
where truncation is a possibility, this means that intended sequence
elements can be truncated and can even be missing entirely;
therefore, a reference to an nth element would be unreliable.
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RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
There is no end of sequence indicator.
2.2. JSON Text Sequence Encoding
The ABNF for the JSON text sequence encoder is given in Figure 2.
JSON-sequence = *(RS JSON-text LF)
RS = %x1E; see RFC 20
; Also known as: Unicode Character INFORMATION SEPARATOR
; TWO (U+001E)
LF = %x0A; "line feed" (LF), see RFC 20
JSON-text = <given by RFC 7159, using UTF-8 encoding>
Figure 2: JSON Text Sequence ABNF
In prose: any number of JSON texts, each encoded in UTF-8 [RFC 3629],
each preceded by one ASCII RS character, and each followed by a line
feed (LF). Since RS is an ASCII control character, it may only
appear in JSON strings in escaped form (see [RFC 7159]), and since RS
may not appear in JSON texts in any other form, RS unambiguously
delimits the start of any element in the sequence. RS is sufficient
to unambiguously delimit all top-level JSON value types other than
numbers. Following each JSON text in the sequence with an LF allows
detection of truncated JSON texts consisting of a number at the top-
level; see Section 2.4.
JSON text sequence encoders are expected to ensure that the sequence
elements are properly formed. When the JSON text sequence encoder
does the JSON text encoding, the sequence elements will naturally be
properly formed. When the JSON text sequence encoder accepts
already-encoded JSON texts, the JSON text sequence encoder ought to
parse them before adding them to a sequence.
Note that on some systems it"s possible to input RS by typing
"ctrl-^"; on some system or applications, the correct sequence may be
"ctrl-v ctrl-^". This is helpful when constructing a sequence
manually with a text editor.
2.3. Incomplete/Invalid JSON Texts Need Not Be Fatal
Per Section 2.1, JSON text sequence parsers should not abort when an
octet string contains a malformed JSON text. Instead, the JSON text
sequence parser should skip to the next RS. Such a situation may
arise in contexts where, for example, data that is appended to log
files to log files is truncated by the filesystem (e.g., due to a
crash or administrative process termination).
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RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
Incremental JSON text parsers may be used, though of course failure
to parse a given text may result after first producing some
incremental parse results.
Sequence parsers should have an option to warn about truncated JSON
texts.
2.4. Top-Level Values: numbers, true, false, and null
While objects, arrays, and strings are self-delimited in JSON texts,
numbers and the values 'true', 'false', and 'null' are not. Only
whitespace can delimit the latter four kinds of values.
JSON text sequences use 0x0A as a "canary" octet to detect
truncation.
Parsers MUST check that any JSON texts that are a top-level number,
or that might be 'true', 'false', or 'null', include JSON whitespace
(at least one byte matching the "ws" ABNF rule from [RFC 7159]) after
that value; otherwise, the JSON-text may have been truncated. Note
that the LF following each JSON text matches the "ws" ABNF rule.
Parsers MUST drop JSON-text sequence elements consisting of non-self-
delimited top-level values that may have been truncated (that are not
delimited by whitespace). Parsers can report such texts as warnings
(including, optionally, the parsed text and/or the original octet
string).
For example, '<RS>123<RS>' might have been intended to carry the top-
level number 1234, but it got truncated. Similarly, '<RS>true<RS>'
might have been intended to carry the invalid text 'trueish'.
'<RS>truefalse<RS>' is not two top-level values, 'true', and 'false';
it is simply not a valid JSON text.
Implementations may produce a value when parsing '<RS>"foo"<RS>'
because their JSON text parser might be able to consume bytes
incrementally; since the JSON text in this case is a self-delimiting
top-level value, the parser can produce the result without consuming
an additional byte. Such implementations ought to skip to the next
RS byte, possibly reporting any intervening non-whitespace bytes.
Detection of truncation of non-self-delimited sequence elements
(numbers, true, false, and null) is only possible when the sequence
encoder produces or receives complete JSON texts. Implementations
where the sequence encoder is not also in charge of encoding the
individual JSON texts should ensure that those JSON texts are
complete.
Williams Standards Track PAGE 5
RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
3. Security Considerations
All the security considerations of JSON [RFC 7159] apply. This format
provides no cryptographic integrity protection of any kind.
As usual, parsers must operate on input that is assumed to be
untrusted. This means that parsers must fail gracefully in the face
of malicious inputs.
Note that incremental JSON text parsers can produce partial results
and later indicate failure to parse the remainder of a text. A
sequence parser that uses an incremental JSON text parser might treat
a sequence like '<RS>"foo"<LF>456<LF><RS>' as a sequence of one
element ("foo"), while a sequence parser that uses a non-incremental
JSON text parser might treat the same sequence as being empty. This
effect, and texts that fail to parse and are ignored, can be used to
smuggle data past sequence parsers that don't warn about JSON text
failures.
Repeated parsing and re-encoding of a JSON text sequence can result
in the addition (or stripping) of trailing LF bytes from (to)
individual sequence element JSON texts. This can break signature
validation. JSON has no canonical form for JSON texts, therefore
neither does the JSON text sequence format.
4. IANA Considerations
The MIME media type for JSON text sequences is application/json-seq.
Type name: application
Subtype name: json-seq
Required parameters: N/A
Optional parameters: N/A
Encoding considerations: binary
Security considerations: See RFC 7464, Section 3.
Interoperability considerations: Described herein.
Published specification: RFC 7464.
Williams Standards Track PAGE 6
RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
Applications that use this media type:
<https://stedolan.github.io/jq>
<https://github.com/mapbox/cligj>
<https://github.com/hildjj/json-text-sequence>
Fragment identifier considerations: N/A
Additional information:
o Deprecated alias names for this type: N/A
o Magic number(s): N/A
o File extension(s): N/A
o Macintosh file type code(s): N/A
Person & email address to contact for further information:
json@ietf.org
Intended usage: COMMON
Author: Nicolas Williams (nico@cryptonector.com)
Change controller: IETF
5. Normative References
[RFC 20] Cerf, V., "ASCII format for network interchange", STD 80,
RFC 20, October 1969,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 20>.
[RFC 2119] Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119, March 1997,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 2119>.
[RFC 3629] Yergeau, F., "UTF-8, a transformation format of ISO
10646", STD 63, RFC 3629, November 2003,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 3629>.
[RFC 5234] Crocker, D., Ed. and P. Overell, "Augmented BNF for Syntax
Specifications: ABNF", STD 68, RFC 5234, January 2008,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 5234>.
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RFC 7464 JSON Text Sequences February 2015
[RFC 7159] Bray, T., Ed., "The JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) Data
Interchange Format", RFC 7159, March 2014,
<http://www.rfc-editor.org/info/RFC 7159>.
Acknowledgements
Phillip Hallam-Baker proposed the use of JSON text sequences for
logfiles and pointed out the need for resynchronization. Stephen
Dolan created <https://github.com/stedolan/jq>, which uses something
like JSON text sequences (with LF as the separator between texts on
output, and requiring only such whitespace as needed to disambiguate
on input). Carsten Bormann suggested the use of ASCII RS, and Joe
Hildebrand suggested the use of LF in addition to RS for
disambiguating top-level number values. Paul Hoffman shepherded the
document. Many others contributed reviews and comments on the JSON
Working Group mailing list.
Author's Address
Nicolas Williams
Cryptonector, LLC
EMail: nico@cryptonector.com
Williams Standards Track PAGE 8
RFC TOTAL SIZE: 16132 bytes
PUBLICATION DATE: Wednesday, February 25th, 2015
LEGAL RIGHTS: The IETF Trust (see BCP 78)
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