`cddl-cat` is a library for validating encoded data against a CDDL
document that describes the expected structure of the data.
CDDL is a text document described by [RFC8610] that describes data
structures. CDDL is not tied to any specific serialization or encoding
method; it can be used to validate data that is in [CBOR] or JSON format.
The goal of this library is to make CBOR or JSON data easy to validate
against a CDDL schema description.
`cddl-cat` supports Rust 1.37 and later.
# Implementation Details
- Supports CBOR and JSON encodings, controlled by the `serde_cbor` and
`serde_json` features.
- An "Intermediate Validation Tree" (IVT) is constructed from the CDDL
AST; this removes some of the CDDL syntax detail resulting in a
simplified tree that can be more easily validated.
The IVT is constructed almost entirely of `Node` elements, allowing
recursive validation.
- Validation is performed by first translating the incoming data into
a generic form, so most of the validation code is completely agnostic
to the serialization format.
- Validation code uses a `Context` object to perform all rule lookups.
This will allow stacking CDDL documents or building CDDL libraries that
can be used by other CDDL schemas. In the future the validation process
itself may be customized by changing the `Context` configuration.
# Examples
This example validates JSON-encoded data against a CDDL schema:
```rust
use cddl_cat::validate_json_str;
let cddl_input = "person = {name: tstr, age: int}";
let json_str = r#"{ "name": "Bob", "age": 43 }"#;
validate_json_str("person", cddl_input, &json_str).unwrap();
```
If the JSON data doesn't have the expected structure, an error will
result:
```rust
use cddl_cat::validate_json_str;
let cddl_input = "person = {name: tstr, age: int}";
let json_str = r#"{ "name": "Bob", "age": "forty three" }"#;
assert!(validate_json_str("person", cddl_input, &json_str).is_err());
```
A similar example, verifying CBOR-encoded data against a CDDL schema:
```rust
use cddl_cat::validate_cbor_bytes;
use serde::Serialize;
#[derive(Serialize)]
struct PersonStruct {
name: String,
age: u32,
}
let input = PersonStruct {
name: "Bob".to_string(),
age: 43,
};
let cbor_bytes = serde_cbor::to_vec(&input).unwrap();
let cddl_input = "person = {name: tstr, age: int}";
validate_cbor_bytes("person", cddl_input, &cbor_bytes).unwrap();
```
Supported prelude types:
- `any`, `uint`, `nint`, `int`, `bstr`, `bytes`, `tstr`, `text`
- `float`, `float16`, `float32`, `float64`, `float16-32`, `float32-64` \
Note: float sizes are not validated.
Supported CDDL features:
- Basic prelude types (integers, floats, bool, nil, text strings, byte strings)
- Literal int, float, bool, UTF-8 text strings
- Byte strings in UTF-8 or hex
- Arrays and maps
- Rule lookups by name
- Groups
- Choices (using `/` or `//` syntax)
- Occurrences (`?`, `*`, `+`, or `m*n`)
- Ranges (e.g. `1..7` or `1...8`)
- Unwrapping (`~`)
- Map keys with cut syntax (`^ =>`)
Unimplemented features:
- Generics
- Extend type with `/=`
- Extend group with `//=`
- Type sockets with `$`
- Group sockets with `$$`
- Control operators, e.g. `.size`, `.bits`, ...
- Group enumeration with `&`
- Tagged data with `#`
- Hexfloat literals (e.g. `0x1.921fb5p+1`)
- Base64 bytestring literals (`b64'...'`)
- Prelude types that invoke CBOR tags (e.g. `tdate` or `biguint`)
[`Node`]: ivt::Node
[`Context`]: context::Context
[RFC8610]: https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8610
[CBOR]: https://cbor.io/