FileSystem Object Notation (FSON) RFC

What is FSON?

FileSystem Object Notation or FSON is an open-standard format to describe JSON objects in a folder and file structure.

Why?

• So that real-time applications can edit each element individually without raising conflicts.
• So that, in a UNIX system, only certain users/groups can read/write specific keys/values.
• So that a GIT versioned FSON shows the evolution of each key/value as a single item.

Rules for filenames

• "X" becomes "_x"
• "_" becomes "__"
• " " becomes "-"

Sources: https://www.dwheeler.com/essays/fixing-unix-linux-filenames.html, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1976007/what-characters-are-forbidden-in-windows-and-linux-directory-names, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filename#Reserved_characters_and_words

Example

{
	'name': 'John Doe',
	'age': 20,
	'colors': ['red', 'green', 'blue']
}

Is equivalent to:

• data/
  • age (file contents: 20)
  • name (contents: "John Doe")
  • colors/
    • 0 ("red")
    • 1 ("green")
    • 2 ("blue")