Content

The content of all documents defined by this media type are extensions of JSON and MUST comply with the rules of that media type. All usages of the JSON keywords "string", "number", "object", "array", "true", "false", "null", and "value" refer to the concepts in the JSON specification unless otherwise stated. The word "property" is used to refer to the concept of "pair", "name/value pair", or "member" in the JSON specification. The word "integer" is used to refer to a JSON "number" with no fractional part. The phrase "container value" is used to refer to objects and arrays. The phrase "simple value" is used to refer to strings, numbers, true, false, or null.

Value/Spec Pairs

Lynx is built on a simple JSON object that conveys a value (data) and a specification (metadata). This object is called a "value/spec pair". A user agent uses the information conveyed in the value/spec pair to effectively display the information to a user.

Format Rules

A value/spec pair:

• MUST be a JSON object
• MUST have a value property whose value MAY be any JSON value.
• MUST have a spec property whose value MUST be a specification object or a URL to a remote specification object.

A Lynx document MUST start with a value/spec pair. If a value/spec pair is a document:

• it SHOULD have a realm property. If present, the value MUST comply with the rules defined for realm URI.
• it MAY have a base property. If present, the value MUST be an absolute URI to be used to represent the URI of the document for relative URI resolution. For more information, see Section 5.1.1 "Base URI Embedded in Content" in RFC 3986.
• it MAY have a focus property. If present, its value MUST be the property name of the value that receives focus when the document is displayed to the user.

If the value of the value property is an object, the value/spec pair MAY be condensed by replacing the value property with all of the properties of the object.

Examples

Value/Spec Pair

{
  "value": {
    "title": "Groundhog Day",
    "rating": 8.1
  },
  "spec": "http://www.example.com/specs/movie-summary"
}

Condensed Value/Spec Pair

{
  "title": "Groundhog Day",
  "rating": 8.1,
  "spec": "http://www.example.com/specs/movie-summary"
}

Document

{
  "base": "http://www.example.com/movies/what-about-bob/title",
  "realm": "http://www.example.com/movies/titles",
  "value": "What About Bob?",
  "spec": "/specs/movies/title"
}

User Agent Rules

If the spec property value is a specification URL, then the user agent MUST fetch the remote specification object using the default retrieval action for the protocol (e.g. GET for HTTP).

If the user agent encounters a relative URI it MUST resolve an absolute URI using the process defined in Section 5 "Reference Resolution" in RFC 3986. For example, the spec property in the document above would resolve to http://www.example.com/specs/movies/title.

When finding the value identified by the focus property, the user agent MUST use the process for finding values.

If a view that originated a request for content is no longer displayed, the user agent MUST NOT display the content resulting from the request.