I imagine that, for my purposes, what this means is since I cannot distinguish a "byte array" from a string literal, that MessagePack serialization will have to be slightly incomplete with regards to binary data. Deserialization should not be a problem since, in general, the first byte of the MsgPack data gives the datatype, so it is easy to distinguish byte data from string data.
> From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 15:28:42 +0000 > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Byte Arrays vs Integer Arrays > > So, in J, if I am given a "byte array", e.g. > let n =: a.{~ 101 14 29 76 100 NB. just some random values > > is it possibly to distinguish this from a literal? > Doing > datatype n > gives > 'literal' > > Also is a.{~ essentially casting an int to a char (in C)? > > > From: [email protected] > > Date: Fri, 30 Jan 2015 09:49:42 -0500 > > To: [email protected] > > Subject: Re: [Jprogramming] Byte Arrays vs Integer Arrays > > > > In J, a byte array is a literal array whose members are elements of > > the a. constant. > > > > That said, the semantics of J are about giving us abstractions which > > hold across some different storage formats. > > > > Meanwhile: if you ask different people "what are the essential > > features of a type" you will get different (and yet vigorously > > asserted) answers. [This depends on what language(s) they have been > > working with, the kinds of problems they have been solving, the nature > > of what they expect from other people, and the primary obstacles they > > face.] > > > > Thanks, > > > > -- > > Raul > > > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Jon Hough <[email protected]> wrote: > > > As I said in an earlier thread, I am attempting to write a MessagePack > > > implementation in J. > > > Spec: https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack/blob/master/spec.md#formats-bin > > > Home: http://msgpack.org/ > > > > > > In the spec there must be a way to serialize/deserialize byte arrays. > > > However, in J what is a byte array? And how would you differentiate it > > > from an integer array (0 ~ 255)? > > > I may be absolutely mistaken, but there seems to be a little ambiguity > > > between these types in J (well there is no byte type). > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
