[libvirt] [Qemu-devel] QMP; unsigned 64-bit ints; JSON standards compliance

[Daniel P. Berrangé]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2019 at 03:45:46PM +0100, Dr. David Alan Gilbert wrote:
> * Daniel P. Berrangé (berrange at redhat.com) wrote:
> > The QEMU  QMP service is based on JSON which is nice because that is a
> > widely supported "standard" data format.....
> > 
> > ....except QEMU's implementation (and indeed most impls) are not strictly
> > standards compliant.
> > 
> > Specifically the problem is around representing 64-bit integers, whether
> > signed or unsigned.
> > 
> > The JSON standard declares that largest integer is 2^53-1 and the
> > likewise the smallest is -(2^53-1):
> > 
> >   http://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/6.0/index.html#sec-number.max_safe_integer
> > 
> > A crazy limit inherited from its javascript origins IIUC.
> 
> Ewwww.

Looking a bit deeper it seems this limit comes from the use of double
precision floating point for storing integers. 2^53-1 is the largest
integer value that can be stored in a 64-bit float without loss of
precision.

The Golang JSON parser decodes JSON numbers to float64 by default so
will have this precision limitation too, though at least they provide
a backdoor for custom parsing from the original serialized representation.

> > QEMU, and indeed many applications, want to handle 64-bit integers.
> > The C JSON library impls have traditionally mapped integers to the
> > data type 'long long int' which gives a min/max of  -(2^63) / 2^63-1.
> > 
> > QEMU however /really/ needs 64-bit unsigned integers, ie a max 2^64-1.
> > 
> > Libvirt has historically used the YAJL library which uses 'long long int'
> > and thus can't officially go beyond 2^63-1 values. Fortunately it lets
> > libvirt get at the raw json string, so libvirt can re-parse the value
> > to get an 'unsigned long long'.
> > 
> > We recently tried to switch to Jansson because YAJL has a dead upstream
> > for many years and countless unanswered bugs & patches. Unfortunately we
> > forgot about this need for 2^64-1 max, and Jansson also uses 'long long int'
> > and raises a fatal parse error for unsigned 64-bit values above 2^63-1. It
> > also provides no backdoor for libvirt todo its own integer parsing. Thus
> > we had to abort our switch to jansson as it broke parsing QEMU's JSON:
> > 
> >   https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1614569
> > 
> > Other JSON libraries we've investigated have similar problems. I imagine
> > the same may well be true of non-C based JOSN impls, though I've not
> > investigated in any detail.
> > 
> > Essentially libvirt is stuck with either using the dead YAJL library
> > forever, or writing its own JSON parser (most likely copying QEMU's
> > JSON code into libvirt's git).
> > 
> > This feels like a very unappealing situation to be in as not being
> > able to use a JSON library of our choice is loosing one of the key
> > benefits of using a standard data format.
> > 
> > Thus I'd like to see a solution to this to allow QMP to be reliably
> > consumed by any JSON library that exists.
> > 
> > I can think of some options:
> > 
> >   1. Encode unsigned 64-bit integers as signed 64-bit integers.
> > 
> >      This follows the example that most C libraries map JSON ints
> >      to 'long long int'. This is still relying on undefined
> >      behaviour as apps don't need to support > 2^53-1.
> > 
> >      Apps would need to cast back to 'unsigned long long' for
> >      those QMP fields they know are supposed to be unsigned.
> > 
> > 
> >   2. Encode all 64-bit integers as a pair of 32-bit integers.
> >     
> >      This is fully compliant with the JSON spec as each half
> >      is fully within the declared limits. App has to split or
> >      assemble the 2 pieces from/to a signed/unsigned 64-bit
> >      int as needed.
> > 
> > 
> >   3. Encode all 64-bit integers as strings
> > 
> >      The application has todo all parsing/formatting client
> >      side.
> > 
> > 
> > None of these changes are backwards compatible, so I doubt we could make
> > the change transparently in QMP.  Instead we would have to have a
> > QMP greeting message capability where the client can request enablement
> > of the enhanced integer handling.
> > 
> > Any of the three options above would likely work for libvirt, but I
> > would have a slight preference for either 2 or 3, so that we become
> > 100% standards compliant.
> 
> My preference would be 3 with the strings defined as being
> %x lower case hex formated with a 0x prefix and no longer than 18 characters
> ("0x" + 16 nybbles). Zero padding allowed but not required.
> It's readable and unambiguous when dealing with addresses; I don't want
> to have to start decoding (2) by hand when debugging.

Yep, that's a good point about readability.

Regards,
Daniel
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