Empty Dictionaries

[Bret Jordan <bret.jordan@broadcom.com>]

All,

Github issue 184 https://github.com/oasis-tcs/cti-stix2/issues/184 that we talked about on yesterdayâs working call has been resolved. The action item out of the call was for the editors to assess where dictionaries were used.  Rich P looked at that and found that when ever they are used they are optional.  So the following text was added to section 2.3 that defines dictionaries. 

Empty dictionaries are prohibited in STIX and MUST NOT be used as a substitute for omitting the property if it is optional. If the property is required, the dictionary MUST be present and MUST have at least one key value pair.

So the entire section, 2.3, now reads as follows:

2.3 Dictionary

Type Name: dictionary

A dictionary captures an arbitrary set of key/value pairs. Dictionary keys MUST be unique in each dictionary, MUST be in ASCII, and are limited to the characters a-z (lowercase ASCII), A-Z (uppercase ASCII), numerals 0-9, hyphen (-), and underscore (_). Dictionary keys MUST be no longer than 250 ASCII characters in length and SHOULD be lowercase. 

Empty dictionaries are prohibited in STIX and MUST NOT be used as a substitute for omitting the property if it is optional. If the property is required, the dictionary MUST be present and MUST have at least one key value pair.

dictionary values MUST be valid property base types.

If you have any concerns with this, please speak up.

Thanks

Bret