RFC 8785 · INFORMATIONAL · 2020

JSON Canonicalization Scheme

Overview

RFC 8785, “JSON Canonicalization Scheme”, is an Informational document published in June 2020 by A. Rundgren, B. Jordan, S. Erdtman. The canonical text is published by the RFC Editor.

Abstract

Cryptographic operations like hashing and signing need the data to be expressed in an invariant format so that the operations are reliably repeatable. One way to address this is to create a canonical representation of the data. Canonicalization also permits data to be exchanged in its original form on the "wire" while cryptographic operations performed on the canonicalized counterpart of the data in the producer and consumer endpoints generate consistent results.

This document describes the JSON Canonicalization Scheme (JCS). This specification defines how to create a canonical representation of JSON data by building on the strict serialization methods for JSON primitives defined by ECMAScript, constraining JSON data to the Internet JSON (I-JSON) subset, and by using deterministic property sorting.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Informational” means

Published for the general information of the community. It does not define an IETF standard and carries no standards-track status.

Read this RFC

The canonical text of RFC 8785 is hosted at rfc-editor.org. Available in HTML,TXT,PDF,XML.

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