Json Schema Mappings

This is a documentation of the mapping strategy from Morphir types to Json Schema. This document describes how Morphir Models maps to Json Schema. Json Schema Reference can be found here \ Additional reading:

Overview

We will give a quick overview of the mapping in the table below:

Type	Elm sample	JSON sample	Comment
`Bool`	`True`, `False`	`true`, `false`	Exact mapping
`Int`	`123`, `-15`	`123`, `-15`	Ints map to JSON number
`Float`	`3.14`, `-53.2`	`3.14`, `-53.2`	Floats map to JSON number
`Char`	`'A'`, `'z'`	`"A"`, `"z"`	Chars map to JSON strings
`String`	`"Foo bar"`, `""`	`"Foo bar"`, `""`	Exact mapping
`Maybe a`	`Just 13`, `Nothing`	`13`, `null`	Maybe maps to nullable JSON value
`List a`	`[1, 2, 3]`, `[]`	`[1, 2, 3]`, `[]`	Lists map to JSON arrays
`tuples`	`( 13, False )`	`[13, false]`	Tuples map to arrays
`record types`	`{ foo = 13, bar = False }`	`{ "foo": 13, "bar": false }`	Records map to objects
`custom types`	`FooBar "hello`, `MyEnum`	`["FooBar", "hello"]`, `"MyEnum"`	see details below
`unit`	`()`	`{}`

How to Generate a Json Schema

Follow the two step s below to generate a Json Schema

Step 1 Run the elm morphir-elm make command to generate an IR
Step 2 Run the elm morphir-elm gen -t JsonSchema to generate the Json Schema

Note - The generated schema is named <package-name>.json by default. But you can specify the filename optionally for the schema using the -f flag.

\ Next, we will get into some specific cases that may need further explanation.

The rest of the explains how each Morphir type maps to the Json Schema Types.

SDK Types
1.1. Basic types
1.1.1. Bool \ 1.1.2. Int \ 1.1.3. Float \ 1.1.4. Char \ 1.1.5. String \
1.2. Advanced types \
1.2.1. Decimal\ 1.2.2. LocalDate \ 1.2.3. LocalTime\ 1.2.4. Month\
1.3. Optional values\
1.4. Collections
1.4.1. List \ 1.4.2. Set \ 1.4.3. Dict \
1.4.5. Results
Composite Types
2.1. Tuples \
2.2. Record Types \
2.3. Custom Types \
2.3.1. General Case \ 2.3.2. Special Cases \ - No-arg Constructor \ - Single Constructor \

1. SDK Types

1.1. Basic types

Basic types

1.1.1. Bool

Boolean type in Morphir maps to boolean in Json Schema as shown in the example:

type Overtime
    = Boolean

Json Schema

"Overtime" : {
  "type" : "boolean"
}

which owould validate against

true

1.1.2. Int

Decimal, Ints and Float types in Morphir all map to number type in Json Schema. An example is given below Morphir model:

type Age
    = Int
type Amount 
    = Decimal

Json Schema

"Age" : {
  "type" : "number"
}
"Amount" : {
  "type" : "number"
}

1.1.3. Float

Float types in Morphir all map to number type in Json Schema. An example is given below

type Score
    = Float

would generate the following schema:

"Score" : {
  "type" : "number"
}

Will validate against:

45.5

1.1.4. Char

Char types in Morphir directly maps to string type in Json Schema since Json Schema does not have a native Char type Therefore elm model:

type Grade
    = Char

would map to the following schema:

"Grade" : {
  "type" : "string"
}

Will validate against:

"A"

1.1.5. String

String types in Morphir directly map to string type in Json Schema. Therefore, elm model:

type LastName
    = String

would map to the following schema:

"Lastname" : {
  "type" : "string"
}

Will validate against:

"foo"

1.2. Advanced types

1.2.1. Decimal

Decimal values are would be mapped to string in the JSON schema. The elm pattern property is used to specified the precision.

1.2.2. LocalDate

LocalDate types in Morphir are mapped to strings in Json Schema. The format attribute in the JSON schema is used to provide the format for the date.

1.2.3. LocalTime

LocalDate types in Morphir are mapped to strings in Json Schema. The format attribute in the JSON schema is used to provide the format for the time.

1.2.4. Month

Month types in Morphir are mapped OneOf schema type with a enum list of all the month names

1.3. Optional values (Maybe)

A Maybe type in Morphir refers to a value that may not exist. This means that it could either be a value or a null. There are two approaches to handling Maybes.\

Set the value of the type to an array of two strings: the type, and "null" \
Treat a Maybe as a custom type with two constructors: the type and null Here, we adopt the second approach. Therefore, the model \

type alias Manager =
    Maybe String

would map to the schema

"Types.Manager": {
   "oneOf": [
      {
      "type": "null"
      },
      {
      "type": "string"
      }
   ]
}

1.4. Collections

1.4.1. List

An array is list of items. Json schema specification supports array validation:

List Validation - each item in the array matches the same schema
Tuple Validation - each item in the array may have a different schema Union types in Morphir maps to arrays in Json Schema. Details are given below in the Custom Types sections.

Items

The array schema contains the items keyword. For list validation, this keyword is set to a single schema that would be used to validate all items in the array For tuple validation, when we want disallows extra items in the tuple, the 'items' keyword is set to false.

Prefix Items

This is a keyword that specifies an array used to hold the schemas for a tuple-validated array. Each item in prefixItems is a schema that corresponds to each index of the document's array

1.4.2. Set

A set is used to define a collection of unique values. A Json Schema can ensure that each of the items in the array is unique. To achieve this, we map a set to an array and set the uniqueItems keyword to true.

1.4.3. Dict

Since we have an approach for mapping Tuples, a Morphir Dict can be considered as a list of Tuples. However, the challenge would be to enforce the unique key constraint. So when we have the Morphir declaration

type alias acronyms =
    Dict String String

Can be represented as list of list, like so:

[[String, String]]

This is expected to validate the following Json document

[["eg", "example"], ["ie", "that is"]]

The first item in each list represents the key in the dictionary and right now, we don't have a way to ensure uniqueness of this item

1.5. Result

A Result in Elm represents the result of a computation that may fail. Therefore, it can be considered as a custom type with two constructors: Ok and Err. With this approach, we can map a result the same way we map Custom types.

The following declaration

type alias Output
    = Result String Int

would be equivalent to the following json schema

{
  "oneOf": [
    {
      "type": "array",
      "items": false,
      "prefixItems": [
        {
          "const": "Err"
        },
        {
          "type": "string"
        }
      ],
      "minItems": 2,
      "maxItems": 2
    },
    {
      "type": "array",
      "items": false,
      "prefixItems": [
        {
          "const": "Ok"
        },
        {
          "type": "integer"
        }
      ],
      "minItems": 2,
      "maxItems": 2
    }
  ]
}

2. Composite Types

Composite types are types composed of other types. The following composite types are covered below: Tuples, Records, Custom Types

2.1. Tuples

Since tuples represents a list of possibly different types, a Morphir tuple could be mapped to a tuple-validated array. For example elm (String, Int) would result in:

{
  "type": "array",
  "items": false,
  "prifixitems" : [
    {
      "type": "string"
    },
    {
      "type": "integer"
    }
  ],
  "minItems": 2,
  "maxItems": 2
}

2.2. Record Types

Record types in Morphir maps to objects in Json schema. The fields of the record maps to properties of the Json Schema object. The properties of a JSON schema is a list of schemas. The only clarification we need to make is that field names use a camel case naming convention

Example 1

sample1 =
    { fooBar = "hello"
    , fooBaz = 13
    }

Which maps to the following JSON:

{
  "fooBar" : "hello",
  "fooBaz" : 13
}

Example 2

type alias Address =
    { country : String
    , state : String
    , street : String
    }

Equivalent Json schema

"Records.Address": {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "Country": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "State": {
            "type": "string"
        },
        "Street": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    }
}

This validates against the json document:

{
   "Country" : "United States",
   "State" : "Texas",
   "Street" : "25 Rain drive"
}

2.3. Custom Types

Custom types in Morphir, are union types with one or more items in the union. These items are called tags or constructors. Each item has zero or more arguments which are types. Json Schema does not support custom types natively. So we use the following approach.

a constructor with its arguments will map to a tuple-validated array where the constructor is the first item in the array
the schema type for the constructor would be const (explained below)
the union type itself would then be represented using the "anyOf" keyword
Custom types are special union types where each subtype is marked with a special tag to make it easier to differentiate. Besides the tag each subtype can also have any number of arguments. These tags are also called constructors since you can think of them as functions with different names and arguments that create instances of the same type. Here's an example:

type Foo 
    = FooBar String
    | FooBaz Int Bool 

sample1 =
    FooBar "hello"
    
sample2 =    
    FooBaz 13 False

Our JSON format needs to capture both the tag and the arguments and also connect them together. So we decided to simply put all of them in an array starting with the tag as the first value:

["FooBar", "hello"]

["FooBaz", 13, false]

For the tags we use upper camel case (which is also called PascalCase).

2.2.1. General Case

The following Morphir model:

type Person
    = Adult String
    | Child String Int

would map to the schema:

"Person.Child": {
    "type": "array",
    "items": false,
    "prefixItems": [
        {
            "const": "Child"
        },
        {
            "type": "string"
        },
        {
            "type": "integer"
        }
    ]
}

The resulting "anyOf" schema would be as shown below:

"Person": {
    "anyOf": [
        {
            "const": "Child"
        },
        {
            "const": "Person"
        }
    ]
}

2.3.2. Special Cases

No-arg Constructor \ As mentioned previously, when a constructor in a union type has zero arguments, then it maps to a const schema The model:

type Currency
    = USD

would generate the schema:

"Currency" : {
  "const" : "USD"
}

- Single Constructor \ When a constructor doesn't have any arguments it behaves like an enum value. The format described above would dictate that we map those to single element arrays in JSON but for simplicity we will map them to just a string value:

sample3 =
    MyEnumValue

Maps to:

"MyEnumValue"

Null (null)

When a schema specifies a type of null, it has only one acceptable value: null. In Json, null is equivalent to a value being absent.

Ref

A schema can reference another schema using the $ref keyword. The valueof the $ref is the URI-reference that is resolved against the base URI. For reference types in Morphir, the $ref keyword is used to refer to the target schema. In the example below, the Address field of the Bank schema refers to the Address schema. So the $ref keyword is used:

Morphir model:

type alias Bank =
    { bankName : String
    , address : Address}

type alias Address =
    { country : String
    , state : String
    , street : String
    }

Json Schema:

"Records.Bank": {
    "type": "object",
    "properties": {
        "Address": {
            "$ref": "#/defs/Address"
        },
        "BankName": {
            "type": "string"
        }
    }
}

anyOf

The anyOf keyword is used to relate a schema with it's subschemas.

Json Schema Mappings

Overview​

How to Generate a Json Schema​

SDK Types​

1.1. Basic types​

1.2. Advanced types \​

1.3. Optional values\​

1.4. Collections​

1.4.5. Results​

Composite Types​

2.1. Tuples \​

2.2. Record Types \​

2.3. Custom Types \​

1. SDK Types​

1.1. Basic types​

1.1.1. Bool​

1.1.2. Int​

1.1.3. Float​

1.1.4. Char​

1.1.5. String​

1.2. Advanced types​

1.2.1. Decimal​

1.2.2. LocalDate​

1.2.3. LocalTime​

1.2.4. Month​

1.3. Optional values (Maybe)​

1.4. Collections​

1.4.1. List​

Items​

Prefix Items​

1.4.2. Set​

1.4.3. Dict​

1.5. Result​

2. Composite Types​

2.1. Tuples​

2.2. Record Types​

2.3. Custom Types​

2.2.1. General Case​

2.3.2. Special Cases​

Null (null)​

Ref​

anyOf​

Overview

How to Generate a Json Schema

SDK Types

1.1. Basic types

1.2. Advanced types \

1.3. Optional values\

1.4. Collections

1.4.5. Results

Composite Types

2.1. Tuples \

2.2. Record Types \

2.3. Custom Types \

1. SDK Types

1.1. Basic types

1.1.1. Bool

1.1.2. Int

1.1.3. Float

1.1.4. Char

1.1.5. String

1.2. Advanced types

1.2.1. Decimal

1.2.2. LocalDate

1.2.3. LocalTime

1.2.4. Month

1.3. Optional values (Maybe)

1.4. Collections

1.4.1. List

Items

Prefix Items

1.4.2. Set

1.4.3. Dict

1.5. Result

2. Composite Types

2.1. Tuples

2.2. Record Types

2.3. Custom Types

2.2.1. General Case

2.3.2. Special Cases

Null (null)

Ref

anyOf