application/vnd.noark5-v4+json. What is it?

[Thomas Sødring]

Folks,

One of the things that is bugging me is that I do not know what
*vnd.noark5-v4+json* actually is.

The standard shows the use of a content type of
application/vnd.noark5-v4+json, but I have not  been able to find out
information about the format/strucutre of this. I have a request with
the  National Archive to see if they can elaborate on this.

The following gist contains a discussion on various strucutres of JSON:

https://gist.github.com/miyagawa/1912431

I think HAL is meant to solve this issue. My understanding is that HAL
is to JSON, what HTML is to plain  text.

The standard might just be about identifying the JSON as belonging to a
particular domain,  Noark5v4 and in that case it's fine. The standard
mentions HAL, once on page 8, so maybe the  JSON should be HAL
compliant. Spring HATEOAS is meant to produce HAL, but it did not
produce  the conformity level JSON with the same strucuture as the
standard asks, so I had to create my  own serializer.

I wonder am I being pedantic in that I would like to know what the
actual strucutre the JSON  should conform to? Are we potentially
creating an interoperability problem where various vendors can structure
their replies differently?

 - Tom