RFC 7386, part 13: package-info.java for JSON Merge Patch

Author: fge

src/main/java/com/github/fge/jsonpatch/mergepatch/package-info.java

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+/*
+ * Copyright (c) 2014, Francis Galiegue (fgaliegue@gmail.com)
+ *
+ * This software is dual-licensed under:
+ *
+ * - the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 3.0 or, at your option, any
+ *   later version;
+ * - the Apache Software License (ASL) version 2.0.
+ *
+ * The text of this file and of both licenses is available at the root of this
+ * project or, if you have the jar distribution, in directory META-INF/, under
+ * the names LGPL-3.0.txt and ASL-2.0.txt respectively.
+ *
+ * Direct link to the sources:
+ *
+ * - LGPL 3.0: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.txt
+ * - ASL 2.0: http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt
+ */
+
+/**
+ * JSON Merge Patch implementation
+ *
+ * <p>This is a complete implementation of <a
+ * href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7386>RFC 7386 (JSON Merge Patch)</a>.</p>
+ *
+ * <p>You may want to use this instead of a "pure" (aka RFC 6902) JSON Patch if
+ * you want to do simple patching of JSON Objects, where this implementation
+ * really shines. For instance, if you want to replace a value for one
+ * property {@code p} with JSON String {@code "bar"}, a JSON Patch will read:
+ * </p>
+ *
+ * <pre>
+ *     [
+ *         { "op": "replace", "path": "/p", "value": "bar" }
+ *     ]
+ * </pre>
+ *
+ * <p>whereas the equivalent JSON Merge Patch will be:</p>
+ *
+ * <pre>
+ *     { "p": "bar"}
+ * </pre>
+ *
+ * <p>Note that this is recursive; therefore, this:</p>
+ *
+ * <pre>
+ *     { "a": { "b": "c" } }
+ * </pre>
+ *
+ * <p>will replace (or add, if not present) the value at JSON Pointer {@code
+ * /a/b} with JSON String {@code "c"}.</p>
+ *
+ * <p><b>HOWEVER:</b> while this seems attractive, there are a few traps. One
+ * of them is that, when a value of an object member in a JSON Merge Patch is
+ * a JSON null, the target will see the equivalent member <b>removed</b>; there
+ * is no way to specify that a value should be set with a JSON null value (JSON
+ * Patch allows for this).</p>
+ *
+ * <p>The RFC defines a pseudo code for how a JSON Merge Patch is applied; this
+ * function is replicated in the javadoc for {@link
+ * com.github.fge.jsonpatch.mergepatch.JsonMergePatch}, so you are encouraged to
+ * read the javadoc for this class, and the RFC itself.</p>
+ */
+package com.github.fge.jsonpatch.mergepatch;