Re: [TLS] Clarification on vectors required

[Marsh Ray <[e-mail]>]

On 4/1/2010 8:57 AM, neil.young wrote:
>> Given the following declaration:
>> 
>> opaque             config_data<2^24-1>;

> Is this understanding correct:
> 
> 1) The declaration is slightly incorrect, because the "floor" element
> is missing. I tend to treat it to be 0

Looks like the lower bound is specified everywhere else.

> 2) The number of bytes expressing the length of the vector is 3,
> large enough to count for 2**24-1 bytes

Sounds right to me.

> 3) If e.g. the size of the vector's data is 2 bytes, do I really have
> to add a pad byte in order to meet the "even multiple" demand?

No. The length field does not need to be the same as the size of an
element and it is not included in the "even multiple" requrirement.

> Is this correct? 00 00 02 47 11 0
> 
> Or this? 00 00 02 47 11

Either is correct, you defined it as 'opaque'. The opaque type is for
"single byte entities containing uninterpreted data".

It's only when vectors contain a defined type that this rule applies:
"The length of an encoded vector must be an even multiple of the length
of a single element (for example, a 17 byte vector of uint16 would be
illegal)."

Obviously, if the defined type is itself one byte in size then the even
multiple requirement is always met.

The example in the RFC:
> opaque Datum[3];      /* three uninterpreted bytes */
> Datum Data[9];   /* 3 consecutive 3 byte vectors */

The 9 must be a multiple of 3.

The size of the length field does not need to be the same as the size of
an element of the vector.

There appears to be an unstated exception to the even multiple
requirement for element types that may themselves be of variable length.

This is just my interpretation, however. :-)

- Marsh