Value types and formats

This page describes which types are used for values of the federation entities, and in which format they need to be.

diaspora* ID

A network-wide identifier of a person. The diaspora* ID has the following parts:

  • username: This is the username of the person on the server. A username can contain:
    • Letters: a-z
    • Numbers: 0-9
    • Special chars: -, _ and .
  • hostname: The hostname of the server. It can be any valid hostname.
  • port: If the server doesn’t listen on the default port of https (443) or http (80), the diaspora* ID also contains the port number.

The diaspora* ID is at most 255 chars long and it must be lowercase.

Examples: alice@example.org, bob@example.com:3000

GUID

A network-wide, unique identifier. A random string of at least 16 and at most 255 chars. It contains only:

  • Letters: a-z and A-Z
  • Numbers: 0-9
  • Special chars: -, _, @, . and :

Special chars aren’t allowed at the end.

Example: 298962a0b8dc0133e40d406c8f31e210

String

Example: Hello world

Boolean

Examples: true, false

Integer

Example: 42

Float

Floating-point number with . as decimal point.

Example: 12.3456

Markdown

Text formatted with markdown using the CommonMark spec.

It can also contain [diaspora:// URLs][diaspora_scheme].

Example: Some *Text* with **markdown** and a [link](diaspora://post/298962a0b8dc0133e40d406c8f31e210).

URL

Example: https://example.org/some/url

Type

CamelCase name of the entity.

Examples: StatusMessage, Post

Name

The name of a Person can contain any character, except ;, because this is used as delimiter for mentions.

Example: Alice Smith

Timestamp

An ISO 8601 time and date with timezone (in UTC and accurate to seconds).

Example: 2016-02-19T02:13:41Z

Date

An ISO 8601 date.

Example: 2016-02-19

Timezone

A timezone in the form Area/Location as used in the Time Zone Database.

Example: Europe/Berlin

Signature

Signature with the private RSA key using the RSA-SHA256 algorithm and base64-encoded.

Example:

07b1OIY6sTUQwV5pbpgFK0uz6W4cu+oQnlg410Q4uISUOdNOlBdYqhZJm62VFhgvzt4TZXfiJgoupFkRjP0BsaVaZuP2zKMNvO3ngWOeJRf2oRK4Ub5cEA/g7yijkRc+7y8r1iLJ31MFb1czyeCsLxw9Ol8SvAJddogGiLHDhjE=