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, in order to allow lossless import/export from various languages.

Examples

These are the primary datatypes in a range of different languages and formats.

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
XML-RPC	string	double	i4, int	boolean	base64	dateTime.iso8601
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	N/A	Date
YAML tags	str	int	float	bool	null (base 64)	N/A

Proposals

• TBD

References

• Datatypes in Wikipedia
• Origional datatype discussion
• Original plist datatype mapping proposal
• Revised xoxo datatype proposal