Question

I want to formally define a schema for a JSON-based protocol.
I have two criteria for the schema:
1. I want to be able to use tools to create parser/serializer (php and .net).
2. Result JSON should be easy to human-read

Here is the context. The schema will be describing a game character, as an example I will take one aspect of the profile – professions.
A character can have up to 2 professions (from a list of 10), each profession is described by a name and a level, e.g.:

Skinning – level 200
Blacksmith – level 300

To satisfy criterion #1 it really helps to have XSD schema (or JSON Schema) to drive code generator or a parser library. But that means that my JSON must look something like:

character : {
    professions : [ 
        { profession : "Skinning", level : 525 }
        { profession : "Blacksmith", level : 745 }
    ]
}

but it feels too chatty, I would rather have JSON look like (notice that profession is used as a key):

character {
    professions : {
        "Skinning" : 525,
        "Blacksmith" : 745 
    }
}

but the later JSON can not be described with XSD without having to define an element for each profession.

So I am looking for a solution for my situation, here are options I have identified:

1. shut up and make JSON XSD-friendly (first snippet above)
2. shut up and make JSON human-friendly and hand-code the parser/serializer.

but I would really like to find a solution that would satisfy both criteria.

Note: I am aware that Newton-King’s JSON library would allow me to parse professions as a Dictionary – but it would require me to hand code the type to map this JSON to. Therefore so far I am leaning towards option #2, but I am open to suggestions.

Answer 1

Rename profession to name so it’d be like:

character : {
    professions : [ 
        { name : "Skinning", level : 525 }
        { name : "Blacksmith", level : 745 }
    ]
}

Then after it’s serialized on the client model would be like this:

profession = character.professions[0]
profession.name
=> "Skinning"