I prefer the original EtherCIS format. It’s obvious from the context (you need the template to have that context, of course) that the string value is in fact “an object”, or rather a specific syntax for the kind of object that the attribute is. Right?
I’d just like to kindly ask to have “our” variant as another valid option as well so that we can be backwards compatible for the many customers that use our format. It basically boils down to the fact that you can address attributes of a (for instance) DvCodedText, or the whole DvCodedText. In the flat format:
{
"a/b/c/d|code": "abc",
"a/b/c/d|value": "def",
"a/b/c/d|terminology": "ghi"
}
is equivalent to
{
"a/b/c/d": "ghi::abc|def|"
}
And in structured mode, you would have d nested inside c nested inside b nested inside a, but then d could be a string attribute with value of "ghi::abc|def|" or alternatively an object {"|code":"abc", "|value":"def", "|terminology":"ghi"} .