Document Types

The structure and meaning of the messages exchanged between Client and Notary is described by Document Types.

A document type consists of

• A list of attributes and their data types.
• A list of sub-elements with attributes and content.

Example

TODO I want to use <notaryProviderContract> and am waiting for a merge.

Data Types

An attribute can have one of these types:

• Boolean: Either the string true or false.
• Integer: ASCII-encoded signed number.
• Timestamp: ASCII-encoded UNIX timestamp.
• String: UTF-8-Encoded, Plain-Text character sequence. TODO is it really UTF-8-encoded?
• Identifier: Human-readable representation of a hash value.
• Armored: Deflate-Compressed and Base64-encoded string. May have decorative section markers. See Section Format.

Elements can have attributes and contain these additional types:

• Key-Value Pairs: Protocol-Buffer encoded key-value pairs. TODO clean up or describe.
• Sub-Document: the element contains a sub-document. Usually signed and armored.
• Signed: Messages and some armored documents are signed. Signed content and signature are encoded using the Section Format.

Elements can be optional or occur repeatedly.

Inheritance

Some document types have commonalities (UserCommands, <notaryProviderContract> and <instrumentDefinition>). The commonalities can be described in Base Document Type which other element types can then inherit the elements and attributes from.

Tip: Command line dearmoring

Armored data can be decoded using this command, if openssl was compiled with zlib support:

alias dearmor="sed '/[-:]/d' | base64 -d | openssl zlib -d"
cat ~/.ot/armoredstuff | dearmor

More Examples

• See directory doctypes/