[data-protocols] RFC: JSON Table Schema

Thu Nov 29 08:11:00 GMT 2012

Tom,

As it has already mentioned in this list, there's a proposal for a JSON
façade of the DSPL format:

https://github.com/nickstenning/dspljson

DSPL is actually more a CSV-based format than an XML-based (ick!) format.
It probably makes sense because it's not an exchange/dissemination
standard, but mostly an upload one.

X.

On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 9:27 PM, Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com> wrote:

> Another data point is Google's Dataset Publishing Language (DSPL)
> https://developers.google.com/public-data/docs/developer_guide
>
> It's XML-based (ick!), but includes dataset level metadata, which can be
> useful for provenance, in addition to the schema.
>
> Tom
>
> On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 2:42 PM, Xavier Badosa <xbadosa at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Rufus,
>>
>> Your simple schema for tabular data is interesting: it's similar but more
>> powerful than the schema used by the US Census Bureau API:
>>
>> http://www.census.gov/developers/
>>
>> It's important to notice that many times what is considered "tabular
>> data" (in your sense: some fields that are shared by a set of individuals)
>> could be better represented in a cube model. Take for example the Census
>> API:
>>
>> [
>>   ["P0010001","NAME","state"],
>>   ["710231","Alaska","02"],
>>   ["4779736","Alabama","01"],
>>   ["2915918","Arkansas","05"],
>>   ["6392017","Arizona","04"],
>>   ["37253956","California","06"],
>>   ...
>> ]
>>
>> Rows in this example have an ID and this ID represents the possible
>> values of a "variable" or "dimension" ("state" in the example). Instead of
>> saying that this is some tabular data of indivuals (that happen to be
>> states) with field "population" ("P0010001"), it seems more accurate to see
>> it as a table ("table" in the statistical sense, not in the DB sense) or
>> cube of population by state. This is a very frequent situation in
>> statistics.
>>
>> To solve this special case (tabular data that is actually cubical,
>> multidimensional) I have proposed JSON-stat
>>
>> http://json-stat.org/doc/
>>
>> Besides, the statistical community uses the SDMX standard for expressing
>> statistics and is currently working on a JSON façade (SDMX-JSON). I'm a
>> member of the SDMX-JSON group. JSON-stat is used in that group as a
>> starting point.
>>
>> Probably we could benefit from some of your ideas.
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 26, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> I've been working on a simple schema for tabular data. The schema is
>>> designed to be expressible in JSON.
>>>
>>> http://www.dataprotocols.org/en/latest/json-table-schema.html
>>>
>>> This is still incomplete (e.g. need to have format specified in more
>>> detail) but I'd be very interested in any feedback or thoughts (e.g.
>>> is this re-inventing the wheel - if so what is better?).
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Rufus
>>>
>>> ## Background
>>>
>>> In many ways this is just an extraction, with some refactoring, of
>>> what was in the Simple Data Format spec:
>>>
>>> <http://www.dataprotocols.org/en/latest/simple-data-format.html>
>>>
>>> Splitting out into its own mini-RFC is good because smaller pieces are
>>> more useful and it makes it re-usable (e.g. can be used from the data
>>> packages spec).
>>>
>>> Real world use: something very like this is used in ReclineJS:
>>> <http://reclinejs.com/docs/models.html#field> and also in the CKAN API
>>> <http://docs.ckan.org/en/ckan-1.8/datastore-api.html
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
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