Transient property attribute

Would it be possible to add a property attribute "transient"? It would not 
need any special treatment, it would serve purely as a marker. Java has this 
as a property attribute/field modifier, and it is very helpful for defining 
what fields should be included in persistence/serialization. The only 
implementation detail that this might effect is that I believe that it would 
be most proper if "toJSONString" ignored properties that had been marked as 
"transient". So if one declared an instance variable:
class A{
    transient var b
}
b would not be included in toJSONString serializations, and other 
persistence/serialization strategies could use introspection to be aware 
that such values should not be saved. Any chance this could make it in the 
spec?
Thanks,
Kris

On 6/6/07, Kris Zyp <kriszyp at xucia.com> wrote:
> Would it be possible to add a property attribute "transient"? It would not
> need any special treatment, it would serve purely as a marker. Java has this
> as a property attribute/field modifier, and it is very helpful for defining
> what fields should be included in persistence/serialization. The only
> implementation detail that this might effect is that I believe that it would
> be most proper if "toJSONString" ignored properties that had been marked as
> "transient". So if one declared an instance variable:
> class A{
>     transient var b
> }
> b would not be included in toJSONString serializations, and other
> persistence/serialization strategies could use introspection to be aware
> that such values should not be saved. Any chance this could make it in the
> spec?

As this is probably just one more approach to customizing JSON
serialization, and we're not trying to do much with that (despite
extensive debate on that list), my guess is "no".

--lars

The transient property is not just for JSON serialization, but gives an
abstracting indication of transience that is important for any future
persistence, serialization, or mapping mechanisms (which could include
libraries or future language additions).
Thanks,
Kris

On 7/30/07, Lars T Hansen <lth at acm.org> wrote:
>
> On 6/6/07, Kris Zyp <kriszyp at xucia.com> wrote:
> > Would it be possible to add a property attribute "transient"? It would
> not
> > need any special treatment, it would serve purely as a marker. Java has
> this
> > as a property attribute/field modifier, and it is very helpful for
> defining
> > what fields should be included in persistence/serialization. The only
> > implementation detail that this might effect is that I believe that it
> would
> > be most proper if "toJSONString" ignored properties that had been marked
> as
> > "transient". So if one declared an instance variable:
> > class A{
> >     transient var b
> > }
> > b would not be included in toJSONString serializations, and other
> > persistence/serialization strategies could use introspection to be aware
> > that such values should not be saved. Any chance this could make it in
> the
> > spec?
>
> As this is probably just one more approach to customizing JSON
> serialization, and we're not trying to do much with that (despite
> extensive debate on that list), my guess is "no".
>
> --lars
>
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