Tuesday 10 April 2018

ASN.1: Data types

ASN.1 support three kinds of data types.
a.   Simple types like INTEGER, BOOLEAN
b.   Composite types like SEQUENCE, SET
c.   User-defined types

Below table summarizes the data types supported by ASN.1.
Data Type
Description
Example
Boolean is used to represent TRUE, FALSE states. It is similar to boolean type in programming languages.
isPassedInExam BOOLEAN
canIReadTheFile BOOLEAN
It is used to represent integer values. It do not have any upper and lower limits, it can be of any magnitude.
id  INTEGER
age INTEGER (15..60)

In the second example, age is of type integer and the valid values are from 15 to 60.
Used to represent bit arrays. Specific bits can be identified by parenthesized integers and assigned names. It is used to model the binary data of arbitrary length.

Values can be represented in 3 possible forms:
binary - '01'B,
hex - '9'H, and
named - {windowOpen, engineOn}
Ex
Occupation ::=  BIT STRING {
         clerk        (0),
    watchman     (1),
         engineer     (2),
    manager      (3)
}
                   
Hobbies ::= BIT STRING {
         chess     (0),
         cricket   (1),
         hockey    (2),
         football  (3),
         others    (4)
}
This is used to represent binary data that is multiple of 8 bits. Octet string can be of any length.

It can be represented in two forms.
a.   Binary – '1000100'B
b.   Hexa - '44'H
Ex
id OCTET STRING
Used to represent date. It should be of the form "YYYY-MM-DD".
dateOfBirth DATE
Used to represent time of the day. It is of the form "HH:MM:SS"
startTime TIME-OF-DAY,
endTime TIME-OF-DAY
It is used to represent date and time together. "YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS"
startTime "2018-02-06T06:30:23"
Represent decimal point numbers.

You can represent real numbers in 2 ways.
a.   Decimal format like 546789.239
b.   Sequence format like {mantissa 546789239, base 10, exponent -3}
salary REAL
ENUMERATED is used to model constants. If you have list of items, you can model them using ENUMERATED type.
FavoriteColors ::= ENUMERATED {black, green, red, yellow, white}
It is used to uniquely identify an entity like algorithm, certificate, (or) organization. It is a sequence of integer components, and components usually have non-negative value.
organizationCode OBJECT IDENTIFIER
Used to define collection of items.
Employee ::= SEQUENCE {
    name VisibleString,
    id VisibleString,
         salary REAL
}
Used to define collection of items of same type. It is similar to arrays in programming languages.
favoriteColors SEQUENCE OF VisibleString
Used to select one item from collection of items
Motorcar ::= SEQUENCE {
    carRegNumber VisibleString
}

Bicycle ::= SEQUENCE {
   bicycleColor VisibleString,
   bicycleModel VisibleString
}

Boat ::= SEQUENCE {
    boatRegNumber VisibleString
}

PreferredVehicle ::= CHOICE { car Motorcar, bike Bicycle, boat Boat }
It is an arbitrary string of IA5 (ASCII) characters. IA5 stands for International Alphabet 5.
email IA5String
Use this type, when you want to use ASCII characters but not control characters
name VisibleString
Use this when you want a string with only numeric characters.
salary NumericString
Use this to create string with uni code characters.
name UTF8String
NULL
Use this to represent a variable with no value. It indicates the absence of an element.

It is similar to SEQUENCE except the type of each identifier must be different from other identifier in the set and order of the elements doesn’t matter here.
Person ::= SET {
  name VisibleString,
  id INTEGER,
  salary REAL
}
It is similar to SEQUENCE OF type, only difference, order of the items may not be same at the receiver end. Suppose you sent the items like 1, 2, 3, but at the receiver end you may receive like 2, 1, 3.
Person ::= SEQUENCE {
    name VisibleString,
         favoriteColors SET OF VisibleString
}
By using ANY, you can supply any valid ASN.1 type while defining identifiers.



Every type in ASN.1 has given a universal tag number to identify them uniquely.

Universal Tag number
Type
0
reserved for BER
1
BOOLEAN
2
INTEGER
3
BIT STRING
4
OCTET STRING
5
NULL
6
OBJECT IDENTIFIER
7
ObjectDescriptor
8
INSTANCE OF, EXTERNAL
9
REAL
10
ENUMERATED
11
EMBEDDED PDV
12
UTF8String
13
RELATIVE-OID
14
Reserved for future use
15
Reserved for future use
16
SEQUENCE, SEQUENCE OF
17
SET, SET OF
18
NumericString
19
PrintableString
20
TeletexString, T61String
21
VideotexString
22
IA5String
23
UTCTime
24
GeneralizedTime
25
GraphicString
26
VisibleString, ISO646String
27
GeneralString
28
UniversalString
29
CHARACTER STRING
30
BMPString
31
Reserved for future use



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