ASN.1 Complete
A technical guide and reference to ASN.1, a standard language often used to describe data protocols.
TABLE OF CONTENTS ASN.1 Complete
Part II: Further Details
Chapter List
- Chapter 8: The Object Identifier Type
- Chapter 9: The Character String Types
- Chapter 10: Subtyping
- Chapter 11: Tagging
- Chapter 12: Extensibility, Exceptions, and Version Brackets
- Chapter 13: Information Object Classes, Constraints, and Parameterization
- Chapter 14: More on Classes, Constraints, and Parameterization
(Or: What's in a Name?)
Summary
The object identifier type, and its associated hierarchical name-space is heavily used by protocol specifiers that use ASN.1. It provides a world-wide unambiguous naming scheme that anyone can use, and has been used to name a very wide range of "things".
Object identifiers are used to identify
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ASN.1 modules,
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Abstract and transfer syntaxes,
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Managed objects and their attributes,
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Components of Directory (X.500) names,
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Headers of MHS messages (X.400) and MHS Body Types,
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Banks and Merchants in Secure Electronic Transactions,
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Character Repertoires and their encodings,
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Parcels being tracked by courier firms, and
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Many other "things" or "information objects".
8.1 Introduction
Final discussion of the object identifier type has been deferred to this "Further Details" section but as a type notation it is as simple as BOOLEAN. You just write:
OBJECT IDENTIFIER
all uppercase. The complexity arises with the set of values of this type, and with the value notation.
First, we should note that the set of values is dynamically changing on a daily basis, and that no one computer system (or human being) is expected to know what all the legal values are. The value notation has a structure, and each object...
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