mirror of
https://github.com/HeyPuter/puter
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137 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
137 lines
3.3 KiB
Markdown
### Problem
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When sending metadata along with arbitrary JSON objects,
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a collision of property names may occur. For example, the
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driver system can't place a "type" property on an arbitrary
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response coming from a driver because that might also be
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the name of a property in the response.
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#### Example:
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```json
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{
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"type": "api:thing",
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"version": "v1.0.0",
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"some": "info"
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}
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```
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#### Awful Solution
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Reserved words. Drivers need to know their response can't have
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keys like `type` or `version`. If we'd like to add more meta
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keys in the future we need to verify that no existing drivers
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use the new key we'd like to reserve. If we have have such features
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as user-submitted drivers this will be impossibe.
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A `meta` key as a single reserved word could work, which is one
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of the solutions discussed below.
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#### Obvious Solution:
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The obvious solution is to return an object with a
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`head` property and a `body` propery:
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```json
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{
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"head": {
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"type": "api:thing",
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"version": "v1.0.0"
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},
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"body": {
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"some": "info"
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}
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}
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```
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I don't mind this solution. I've come up with some alternatives though,
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because this solution has a couple drawbacks:
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- it looks a little verbose
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- it's not backwards-compatible with arbitrary JSON-object responses
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## Solutions
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### Dollar-Sign Convention
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- Objects have two classes of keys:
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- "meta" keys begin with "$"
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- other keys must validate against the
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usual identifier rules: `/[A-Za-z_][A-Za-z0-9_]*/`
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- The meta key `$` indicates the schema or class of
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the object.
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- Example:
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```json
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{
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"$": "api:thing",
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"$version": "v1.0.0",
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"some": "info"
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}
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```
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- what sucks about it:
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- `$` might be surprising or confusing
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- response is a subset of valid JSON keys
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(those not including `$`)
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- what's nice about it:
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- backwards-compatible with arbitrary JSON-object responses
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which don't already use `$`
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### Underscore Convention
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- Same as above, but `_` instead of `$`
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```json
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{
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"_": "api:thing",
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"_version": "v1.0.0",
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"some": "info"
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}
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```
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- what sucks about it:
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- `_` might be confusing
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- response is a subset of valid JSON keys
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(those not including `_`)
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- what's nice about it:
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- `_` is conventionally used for private property names,
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so this might be a little less surprising
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- backwards-compatible with arbitrary JSON-object responses
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which don't already use `_`
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### Nesting Convention, simplified
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- Similar to the "obvious solution" except
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metadata fields are lifted up a level.
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It's relatively inconsequential if meta keys
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have reserved words compared to value keys.
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```json
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{
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"type": "api:thing",
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"version": "v1.0.0",
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"value": {
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"some": "info"
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}
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}
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```
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### Modified Dollar/Underscore convention
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- Using `_` in this example, but instead of prefixing
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meta properties they all go under one key.
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```json
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{
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"_": {
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"type": "api:thing",
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"version": "v1.0.0"
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},
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"some": "info"
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}
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```
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- what sucks about it:
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- `_` might be confusing
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- response is a subset of valid JSON keys
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(those not **exactly** `_`)
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- what's nice about it:
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- `_` is conventionally used for private property names,
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so this might be a little less surprising
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- backwards-compatible with arbitrary JSON-object responses
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which don't already use `_` as an exact key
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- only one reserved key
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