* Michael S. Tsirkin (m...@redhat.com) wrote: > On Tue, Jun 05, 2018 at 03:09:17PM -0500, Eric Blake wrote: > > On 06/05/2018 02:58 PM, Richard W.M. Jones wrote: > > > > Binary blobs can always be base64 encoded for representation within > > > > a valid JSON UTF-8 string (and we already have several QMP > > > > interfaces that utilize base64 encoding to pass through what is > > > > otherwise invalid UTF-8). It does inflate things slightly compared > > > > to a format that allows a raw length coupled with raw data, but that > > > > is not necessarily a problem. > > > > > > Of course how we represent them externally and/or while > > > using QMP / qemu-img to store and retrieve them is up for grabs. > > > Doesn't JSON allow binary to be encoded? (Knowing how poorly > > > done JSON is, I wouldn't be surprised if not) > > > > JSON itself does not have a binary primitive; to pass arbitrary data through > > JSON you have to first encode that data into something like base64 that can > > then be represented as a UTF-8 string. For reference, look at > > qapi/crypto.json and the definition of QCryptoSecretFormat. > > But there isn't a way to figure out that a string is base64, which > means each application needs to know whether it's a string or > a binary. > > How about specifying the encoding in the value? > > string value: > [A-Za-z][^=\0]=S[^\0]* > > base64 value: > [A-Za-z][^=\0]=B[A-Za-z0-9+/]* > > or the key: > S[A-Za-z][^=\0]=[^\0]* > > base64 value: > B[A-Za-z][^=\0]=[A-Za-z0-9+/]*
Why reinvent the wheel yet again? The world has enough encodings out there, and we're trying to add something that's a trivial data store for a frankly trivial use. While I hate json, it's at least standard. Dave > ? > > -- > MST -- Dr. David Alan Gilbert / dgilb...@redhat.com / Manchester, UK
