Implicit traversal through links in dictionaries

[bronger]

I see an inconsistency in the way link within dictionaries are resolved. I may misinterpret the spec but then one should consider clarifying it (I would be happy to file a PR in this case).

I refer to https://github.com/ipld/specs/tree/master/ipld#link-properties-convention. The command ipld cat --json QmCCC...CCC/cat.jpg yields the content of cat.jpg. However, I would have expected the following output:

{
    "link": {"/": "QmCCC...222"},
    "mode": "0644",
    "owner": "jbenet"
}

[bronger]

Is "link" a special key in IPLD?

[Stebalien]

You're absolutely correct, "link" is not a special key. We considered building link metadata into the spec but decided against it for simplicity; applications must decide how to store their own metadata.

Note: The "/" is a special key. That's how we encode links in JSON.

[bronger]

Thus, ipld cat --json QmCCC...CCC/cat.jpg is wrong and ipld cat --json QmCCC...CCC/cat.jpg/link is correct in order to get the binary content?

[Stebalien]

Yes.

[rvagg]

Closing due to staleness as per team agreement to clean up the issue tracker a bit (ipld/team-mgmt#28). This doesn't mean this issue is off the table entirely, it's just not on the current active stack but may be revisited in the near future. If you feel there is something pertinent here, please speak up, reopen, or open a new issue. [/boilerplate]