addressing-limitations.md

Addressing limitations of json2dir

This documents some known issues of json2dir and potential ways to solve them.

TOCTOU

json2dir should be rewritten not to be affected by TOCTOU attacks.

Non-UTF-8 file contents

["base64", string] builtin should be added to support arbitrary file contents.

Directory metadata

An builtin for directories should be added. This would allow to represent file metadata and non-UTF-8 file names.

Potential syntax:

[
    "directory",

    # The short form, allowing arbitrary file names
    
    ## Binary file name. 
    ["base64", string],
    
    ## File contents.
    "Hello"

    # The full form. Not clear how useful it is.

    {
        "name": ...,
        "content": ...,

        # Unclear what the permissions should be exactly, but could be useful.
        "permissions": ...,

        # Not sure if this will make the cut.
        "user": ...,
        "group": ...,
    }
]

Executable files which aren't scripts

Currently, all executable files are tagged script. This is misleading.

Potential solution: rename the script tag to something better. For example, executable.