Progressive JSON Support?

[mschorsch]

I read this article about progressive json. Would that also be something for Jackson?

[cowtowncoder]

I think it would be helpful to suggests reasons why it might be interesting or useful. Or maybe summary of what it is at high level.

[mschorsch]

Progressive JSON is a method of sending JSON data in a streaming, breadth-first way. Instead of waiting to send complete nested objects, the server sends the top-level structure first, followed by deeper parts as they become ready.

Short example:

{
  header: "$1",
  post: "$2",
  footer: "$3"
}

Here, "$1", "$2", "$3" refer to pieces of information that have not been sent yet. These are placeholders that can progressively be filled in later in the stream.

{
  header: "$1",
  post: "$2",
  footer: "$3"
}
/* $1 */
"Welcome to my blog"
/* $3 */
"Hope you like it"
/* $2 */
{
  content: "$4",
  comments: "$5"
}
/* $4 */
"This is my article"

This allows interfaces (like React) to start rendering early, improving responsiveness.

Full article: https://overreacted.io/progressive-json/

I thought this could be of interest for Jackson.

[pjfanning]

It's not a spec. It's just some random thoughts about how to architect solutions.
If they write a spec and get buy-in from multiple orgs and/or users, maybe we could have a look.

[cowtowncoder]

From brief look, it sounds like something that could work "above" Jackson's core streaming API, but not as part of it or databind. But like @pjfanning said, it's probably too early to do much more than to be aware of its existence.

Thank you for sharing @mschorsch !