Asn1 Release Notes

Asn1 1.2.9.3

Known problems

• The compiler does not check that an exported name actually exists in the ASN.1 module.
  Own Id: OTP-3659
• The compiler does not check that a value referenced by name does exist.
  Own Id: OTP-3277
• BER: The compiler does not take the extensions into account when checking if the tags are unique in a SEQUENCE or SET.
  Own Id: OTP-3304

Fixed errors and malfunctions

• This version supports soft upgrade from versions 1.2.6 1.2.7.
• In an ENUMERATED type like this:
  T ::= ENUMERATED { blue, green}
  The symbols was encoded/decoded with the wrong values, i.e in reverse order. This is now corrected.
  Own Id: OTP-3700
• PER: OCTET STRING with Size constrained to a single value i.e fixed size was treated wrong during encode and decode. This is now corrected.
  Own Id: OTP-3701

Improvements and new features

• There is now a new compiler option ber_bin available that can be used to generate encode/decode functions for BER that uses the new "bit-syntax" to make the functions more efficient. The ber_bin option is used as an alternative to the ber and per options.

  The encode function then produces a possibly nested list of binaries and integer lists. The decode function does in this case require a single binary as input instead of a list. The modules generated with this option require that you have an R7A or later system, otherwise they will not compile and the runtime module asn1rt_ber_bin can not be executed.

  The ber_bin option is not officially supported in this version (will be in a later version) but is provided for those who want to try it. It should be significantly faster at decode and is slightly faster at encode. Exactly how performance differs between this binary approach and the list approach depends highly on the type of input. Another thing worth noting is that both approaches still have a lot of solutions in common which can be improved a lot to gain even better performance.

Asn1 1.2.9.2

Fixed errors and malfunctions

• BER: Encode/decode of extension components did not work properly. This is now corrected.
  Own Id: OTP-3395
  Aux Id: PER:The encode/decode of NULL as an open type has been corrected. An open type must always have a length of at least 1 byte even if the contained value (e.g NULL) encodes to nothing.
  Own Id: OTP-3496
  Aux Id:
• BER:In the current implementation extension components of a SEQUENCE are required to be present when they are specified as mandatory. This is an error, all extension components are "optional" even if they are not specified to have the OPTIONAL or DEFAULT property. This is now corrected.
  Own Id: OTP-3278

Improvements and new features

• The ASN.1 language feature COMPONENTS OF is now implemented.
  Own Id: OTP-2515
• The encoding and decoding of ENUMERATED and INTEGER with NamedNumbers is made more efficient and thus faster in runtime.
  Own Id: OTP-3464
  Aux Id:
• Added support for encode/decode of open type which is constrained to a specific type. Previously the value of an open type had to be a list of octets, but now the Erlang representation of the specific type used in the constraint is used both as input to encode and as output from decode.
  Own Id: OTP-3569
  Aux Id:
• PER: GeneralString, GraphicalString etc. i.e all strings that are not so called "known-multiplier character string types" are now supported by the runtime encode/decode functions.
  Own Id: OTP-3573
  Aux Id: