What's a selector?

What's a selector?

OCapN Selector corresponds to Syrup symbol and Scheme symbol. Because we can’t use JavaScript symbols (risk of registry stuffing attacks), MarkM insisted we give this a distinguishing name. It follows that it should have its own passStyle, which should replace symbols entirely in the long run.

https://github.com/ocapn/ocapn/blob/main/draft-specifications/Model.md#selector

we can’t use JavaScript symbols (risk of registry stuffing attacks)

is the concern here only from using Symbol.for? would making our own symbol registry as a WeakRefMap (map to weakly held values) resolve the attack vector?

here is an example showing a Symbol being GC'd in nodejs

❯ node --expose-gc
Welcome to Node.js v20.18.0.
Type ".help" for more information.
> const registry = new FinalizationRegistry((heldValue) => console.log(`Object with value '${heldValue}' has been garbage collected.`));
undefined
> registry.register(Symbol('foo'), 'foo');
undefined
> gc()
undefined
> Object with value 'foo' has been garbage collected.

Seeing this thread, I realize I gave you bad advise. Selector is like Tagged in some ways, but is like Symbol in other ways. I'll make a PR staged on this one as my corrected review suggestions. Hold on.

would making our own symbol registry as a WeakRefMap (map to weakly held values) resolve the attack vector?

Would be an interesting experiment, but I don't expect it to be a better solution than what this PR is attempting.

#2777

Thanks for the great idea, and sorry for how long it took for me to get it.

closed for #2777