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Re: [saag] ASN.1 vs. DER Encoding

Viktor Dukhovni <ietf-dane@dukhovni.org> Tue, 26 March 2019 20:01 UTC

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Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2019 16:01:03 -0400
From: Viktor Dukhovni <ietf-dane@dukhovni.org>
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Subject: Re: [saag] ASN.1 vs. DER Encoding
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On Tue, Mar 26, 2019 at 08:38:58PM +0100, Michael Richardson wrote:

> Almost nobody uses encoders/decoders that
> generate code from ASN.1 today, it's all hand-coded...

The exceptions are notable and praiseworthy.  Heimdal's (Kerberos
and X.509) ASN.1 codecs are generated by an ASN.1 compiler from the
ASN.1 module definitions.

> This is why we hate DER, and we like CDDL/CBOR.

Whatever the abstract syntax, the real solution is probably more
widely available/used compilers.  Hand-rolled codecs will have more
(frequent and subtle) bugs.

-- 
	Viktor.

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