rest/datatypes

Datatypes in HTML

One of the challenges of using HTML as a data transport is that everything, by default, is a string. This page explores ways to use microformats -- specifically, class names -- to encode data type information, e.g., for use with xoxo and rest/ahah.

Examples

Datatype usage in various languages

Language/format	string	float	integer	boolean	data	date/time
XML Schema	string	float, double	decimal, integer, etc.	boolean	hexBinary, base64Binary	duration, dateTime, date, time
Mac OS X plists	string	real	integer	true, false	data	date
C	char*	float, double	int, long, short	byte	void*	N/A
JSON (JavaScript)	string	number	number	true, false	object	N/A

Proposals

• TBD

References

• YAML format
• JSON (JavaScript)
• Datatypes in Wikipedia
• Origional datatype discussion
• Original plist datatype mapping proposal
• Revised xoxo datatype proposal