Convert::ASN1(3)

NAME
  Convert::ASN1 - ASN.1 Encode/Decode library

SYNOPSYS
  use Convert::ASN1;

  $asn = Convert::ASN1->new;
  $asn->prepare(q<

    [APPLICATION 7] SEQUENCE {
      int INTEGER,
      str OCTET STRING
    }

  >);

  $pdu = $asn->encode( int => 7, str => "string");

  $out = $asn->decode($pdu);
  print $out->{int}," ",$out->{str},"\n";

  use Convert::ASN1 qw(:io);

  $peer   = asn_recv($sock,$buffer,0);
  $nbytes = asn_read($fh, $buffer);
  $nbytes = asn_send($sock, $buffer, $peer);
  $nbytes = asn_send($sock, $buffer);
  $nbytes = asn_write($fh, $buffer);
  $buffer = asn_get($fh);
  $yes    = asn_ready($fh)

DESCRIPTION
Convert::ASN1 encodes and decodes ASN.1 data structures using BER/DER rules.

METHODS

  new
Contructor, creates a new object.

  error
Returns the last error.

  configure ( OPTIONS )
Configure options to control how Convert::ASN1 will perform various tasks. Options are passed as name-value pairs.

encode
    Reference to a hash which contains various encode options.

decode
    Reference to a hash which contains various decode options.

encoding
    One of 'BER' or 'DER'. The default is 'BER'

Encode options

real
    Which encoding to use for real's. One of 'binary', 'nr1', 'nr2', 'nr3'

time
    This controls how UTCTime and GeneralizedTime elements are encoded. The default is "withzone".

    utctime
        The value passed will be encoded without a zone, ie a UTC value.

    withzone
        The value will be encoded with a zone. By default it will be encoded using the local time offset. The offset may be set using the "timezone" configure option.

    raw The value passed should already be in the correct format and will be copied into the PDU as-is.

timezone
    By default UTCTime and GeneralizedTime will be encoded using the local time offset from UTC. This will over-ride that. It is an offset from UTC in seconds. This option can be overriden by passing a reference to a list of two values as the time value. The list should contain the time value and the offset from UTC in seconds.

bigint
    If during encoding an value greater than 32 bits is discovered and is not already a big integer object, then the value will first be converted into a big integer object. This option controls the big integer class into which the objects will be blessed. The default is to use Math::BigInt

Decode options

time
    This controls how a UTCTime or a GeneralizedTime element will be decoded. The default is "utctime".

    utctime
        The value returned will be a time value as returned by the "time" function.

    withzone
        The value returned will be a reference to an array of two values. The first is the same as with "utctime", the second is the timezone offset, in seconds, that was used in the encoding.

    raw The value returned will be the raw encoding as extracted from the PDU.

bigint
    If during decoding any big integers are discovered (integers greater than 32 bits), they will be decoded into big integer objects. This option controls the big integer class into which the objects will be blessed. The default is to use Math::BigInt.

  prepare ( ASN )
Compile the given ASN.1 descripton which can be passed as a string or as a filehandle. The syntax used is very close to ASN.1, but has a few differences. If the ASN decribes only one macro then encode/decode can be called on this object. If ASN describes more than one ASN.1 macro then "find" must be called. The method returns undef on error.

  prepare_file ( ASNPATH )
Compile the ASN.1 description to be read from the specified pathname.

  find ( MACRO )
Find a macro from a prepared ASN.1 description. Returns an object which can be used for encode/decode.

  encode ( VARIABLES )
Encode a PDU. Top-level variable are passed as name-value pairs, or as a reference to a hash containing them. Returns the encoded PDU, or undef on error.

  decode ( PDU )
Decode the PDU, returns a reference to a hash containg the values for the PDU. Returns undef if there was an error.

EXPORTS
As well as providing an object interface for encoding/decoding PDUs Convert::ASN1 also provides the following functions.

  IO Functions

asn_recv SOCK, BUFFER, FLAGS
    Will read a single element from the socket SOCK into BUFFER. FLAGS may be MSG_PEEK as exported by "Socket". Returns the address of the sender, or undef if there was an error. Some systems do not support the return of the peer address when the socket is a connected socket, in these cases the empty string will be returned. This is the same behaviour as the "recv" function in perl itself.

    It is recommended that if the socket is of type SOCK_DGRAM then "recv" be called directly instead of calling "asn_recv".

asn_read FH, BUFFER, OFFSET
asn_read FH, BUFFER
    Will read a single element from the filehandle FH into BUFFER. Returns the number of bytes read if a complete element was read, -1 if an incomplete element was read or undef if there was an error. If OFFSET is specified then it is assumed that BUFFER already contains an incomplete element and new data will be appended starting at OFFSET.

    If FH is a socket the asn_recv is used to read the element, so the same restiction applies if FH is a socket of type SOCK_DGRAM.

asn_send SOCK, BUFFER, FLAGS, TO
asn_send SOCK, BUFFER, FLAGS
    Identical to calling "send", see perlfunc

asn_write FH, BUFFER
    Identical to calling "syswrite" with 2 arguments, see perlfunc

asn_get FH
    "asn_get" provides buffered IO. Because it needs a buffer FH must be a GLOB or a reference to a GLOB. "asn_get" will use two entries in the hash element of the GLOB to use as its buffer:

      asn_buffer - input buffer
      asn_need   - number of bytes needed for the next element, if known

    Returns an element or undef if there was an error.

asn_ready FH
    "asn_ready" works with "asn_get". It will return true if "asn_get" has already read enough data into the buffer to return a complete element.

  Encode/Decode Functions

asn_tag
asn_decode_tag
asn_encode_tag
asn_decode_length
asn_encode_length

  Constants

ASN_BIT_STR
ASN_BOOLEAN
ASN_ENUMERATED
ASN_GENERAL_TIME
ASN_IA5_STR
ASN_INTEGER
ASN_NULL
ASN_OBJECT_ID
ASN_OCTET_STR
ASN_PRINT_STR
ASN_REAL
ASN_SEQUENCE
ASN_SET
ASN_UTC_TIME
ASN_APPLICATION
ASN_CONTEXT
ASN_PRIVATE
ASN_UNIVERSAL
ASN_PRIMITIVE
ASN_CONSTRUCTOR
ASN_LONG_LEN
ASN_EXTENSION_ID
ASN_BIT

  Debug Functions

asn_dump
asn_hexdump

EXPORT TAGS

:all
    All exported functions

:const
    ASN_BOOLEAN, ASN_INTEGER, ASN_BIT_STR, ASN_OCTET_STR, ASN_NULL, ASN_OBJECT_ID, ASN_REAL, ASN_ENUMERATED, ASN_SEQUENCE, ASN_SET, ASN_PRINT_STR, ASN_IA5_STR, ASN_UTC_TIME, ASN_GENERAL_TIME, ASN_UNIVERSAL, ASN_APPLICATION, ASN_CONTEXT, ASN_PRIVATE, ASN_PRIMITIVE, ASN_CONSTRUCTOR, ASN_LONG_LEN, ASN_EXTENSION_ID, ASN_BIT

:debug
    asn_dump, asn_dumphex

:io asn_recv, asn_send, asn_read, asn_write, asn_get, asn_ready

:tag
    asn_tag, asn_decode_tag, asn_encode_tag, asn_decode_length, asn_encode_length

MAPPING ASN.1 TO PERL
Every element in the ASN.1 definition has a name, in perl a hash is used with these names as an index and the element value as the hash value.

  # ASN.1
  int INTEGER,
  str OCTET STRING

  # Perl
  { int => 5, str => "text" }

In the case of a SEQUENCE, SET or CHOICE then the value in the namespace will be a hash reference which will be the namespce for the elements with that element.

  # ASN.1
  int INTEGER,
  seq SEQUENCE {
    str OCTET STRING,
    bool BOOLEAN
  }

  # Perl
  { int => 5, seq => { str => "text", bool => 1}}

If the element is a SEQUENCE OF, or SET OF, then the value in the namespace will be an array reference. The elements in the array will be of the type expected by the type following the OF. For example with "SEQUENCE OF STRING" the array would contain strings. With "SEQUENCE OF SEQUENCE { ... }" the array will contain hash references which will be used as namespaces

  # ASN.1
  int INTEGER,
  str SEQUENCE OF OCTET STRING

  # Perl
  { int => 5, str => [ "text1", "text2"]}

  # ASN.1
  int INTEGER,
  str SEQUENCE OF SEQUENCE {
    type OCTET STRING,
    value INTEGER
  }

  # Perl
  { int => 5, str => [
    { type => "abc", value => 4 },
    { type => "def", value => -1 },
  ]}

  Exceptions
There are some exceptions where Convert::ASN1 does not require an element to be named. These are SEQUENCE {...}, SET {...} and CHOICE. In each case if the element is not given a name then the elements inside the {...} will share the same namespace as the elements outside of the {...}.

TODO

•   XS implementation.

•   More documentation.

•   More tests.

AUTHOR
Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>, Report bugs via <bug-Convert-ASN1@rt.cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 2000-2002 Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>. All rights reserved. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.