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ASN-1Step — Enhancements History

ASN-1Step 10.5.0 (latest version)

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v10.5.0.
  • When the -generateMessages option is specified, ASN-1Step now supports the new OSS.GenRandomValues and OSS.GenOrderedValues directives that can be used to mark fields, identified by absolute references and inside a PDU type, for which to generate random or ordered values, possibly using custom limits from the directive. Values of other fields may have fixed or random values based on global pre-defined settings. The new directives can accept up to 2 parameters, separated by a comma. When present, they specify the lower and/or upper limit on the following values:
    • Integer values for INTEGER types
    • Bit, octet, and character string lengths for BIT STRING, OCTET STRING, and restricted character string types
    • An enumerator index for ENUMERATED types
    • An alternative index for CHOICE types
    • The number of components for SET OF and SEQUENCE OF types
    • An information object index inside constraining information object set, if the specified type includes a table or component relation constraint
    When the OSS.GenRandomValues directive is specified, values of the targeted fields are randomly generated within the specified custom range or, when custom limits are absent, within the global pre-defined limits common for the same built-in type.
    Values of types marked with the OSS.GenOrderedValues directive are indexed sequentially starting from the lower limit and ending with the upper limit, using the global index that starts from 0 and is common for all marked types. If the total number of values for a given type is less than the requested number of unique messages to be generated, a value that matches the lower limit is selected again, while indices of values for other types could continue to increase in an attempt to generate the requested number of unique messages.
    When a type marked with OSS.GenRandomValues or OSS.GenOrderedValues is constrained, values that satisfy the constraints are selected from the range specified in the directive or are assumed by default. If a type is constrained with single values only, values are selected from the list of constraining single values and the limits from the directive are ignored.
    Note that a single global index is used to select an ordered value for each marked field, even when the field types have different constraints. So, identical values for some types could be generated as long as the final message of the top-level PDU is unique.
  • When the -generateMessages option is specified, the new -noRandomLimits command line can be used to instruct ASN-1Step to generate fixed default values for all types except those for which the OSS.GenRandomValues or OSS.GenOrderedValues directive is specified. By default, without -noRandomLimits, values of unmarked types are generated randomly using pre-defined global limits or those specified in the -randomLimits option.
  • Support for the -sortSetChoice option has been extended. It will now work regardless of whether the -csv option is specified or implied. The -sortSetChoice option instructs ASN-1Step to sort components of SET and CHOICE types according to PER-based and canonical encoding rules.
  • The new -noSortSetChoice command line option has been added. It instructs ASN-1Step to skip PER-based and canonical encoding rules that force sorting of SET and CHOICE components when all encoding rules are implied by default, that is, when no explicit encoding rules options were specified and no encoding files with PER-based or canonical encodings were included on the command line.
  • The default behavior for decoding from .csv files has been changed; all encoding rules are implied by the following command:
    asn1step bcas.asn -decode 1 myCard.csv
    In this case, components of SET and CHOICE types are expected to be included in a sorted order in the input .csv file. Use the new -noSortSetChoice option to decode CSV with non-sorted SET and CHOICE components: 
    asn1step bcas.asn -decode 1 myCard.csv -noSortSetChoice

ASN-1Step 10.4.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v10.4.0.
  • The -printPerFlags option supports the new OSS_NO_TRACE_FOR_TRUNCATED_ELEMENTS flag that instructs the PER analyzer to not print tracing for truncated elements of SEQUENCE OF and SET OF types that have OSS.Truncate directives.

ASN-1Step 10.3.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v10.3.0.
  • ASN-1Step supports the new command line option, -generateMessages, which can be used to generate multiple random unique or non-unique messages for the specified PDU using one or more sets of encoding rules.
    • The maximum number of generated messages is limited to 10 in the trial version and to 10,000 in the production version of ASN-1Step.
    • By default, ASN-1Step attempts to create files with unique messages. The number of attempts is 10 or the number specified in the third argument of the option. If the specified number of attempts is 0, the output files could include duplicate messages.
    • By default, each message is written to a separate file with a filename prefix derived from the PDU type name and a suffix consisting of an underscore and a number, starting with "1". You can change the location of the output files or a filename prefix by specifying the -putFiles command line option. You can also use the -output option to write all generated messages that are encoded using the same encoding rules to a single file.
    • The new -randomLimits command line option can be used to change pre-defined limits on several ASN.1 type-specific properties used in random value generation for unconstrained ASN.1 types, for example, a range of values for INTEGER types or number of bits, octets, or characters for BIT STRING, OCTET STRING, and unrestricted character string types accordingly.
    • The new -seed command line option can be used to specify your own seed to be used in the random value generator instead of using the current time by default.
  • ASN-1Step supports the new command line option, -getFiles, which can be used along with the -decodePdu option to obtain a list of input encoding files that are filtered based on the specified filename extension that corresponds to the encoding rules used to create the files. An optional third parameter specifies a non-default format of the input files, such as a text format with hexadecimal or binary digits for files created using binary encoding rules or a special CSV format for CSV files.
    • The new -putFiles option is supported with the -allEncode, -encodeValue, -decodePDU with re-encoding, or -generateMessages options. It specifies the location for the multiple output encoding files, an optional common filename prefix, and an optional number suffix for the first output file, which is increased by '1' for other files. When an input encoding file contains multiple concatenated messages, those messages are re-encoded and written in the same order into the corresponding output file.
    • The -encodeValue command line option can now be used to specify the location from which all .txt files that contain values in value notation format should be encoded.
  • ASN-1Step now recognizes the new -2021 option. The existing -2015 option is now an alias of the -2021 option. Also, the ASN1.Version compiler directive will now accept '2021' as an argument.

ASN-1Step 10.2.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v10.2.0.
  • ASN.1-Step supports the new "extended" CSV header format as one of the parameters passed to the -csv option. The format includes absolute reference names with the following additions:
    • The PDU name prefix is added for all nodes.
    • The * token is used for unnamed components of SET OF and SEQUENCE OF types.
    • The component index, starting with "1", is used for unnamed components of SET, SEQUENCE, and CHOICE types.
    Example: asn1step bcas.asn test.ber -decodePdu BBCard -csv extended,dash,bcd
  • ASN-1Step supports the new command line option, -allCsvMax, which can be used to specify the maximum number of all CSVs to create for a top-level PDU type value that can have multiple components for multiple SET OF and SEQUENCE OF type values for which extra CSVs are created.
    Example: asn1step bcas.asn test.ber -decodePdu BBCard -csv dash,10 -allCsvMax 20
    Previously, the total number of CSVs was set at the maximum between the user-specified number on the number of CSVs per each SET OF and SEQUENCE OF type and 50, multiplied by 50.
  • ASN-1Step supports the new -csvSkipEmpty command line option, which can be used to skip CSVs that include only column separators and spaces; that is, CSVs with empty values for all nested simple types.
  • When OCTET STRING values with OSS.PrintFunctionName directives applied cannot be converted to the specified OSS format, ASN-1Step now includes the original values in hexadecimal format, prefixed with the "???" string, when creating the CSVs. The CSV decoder skips conversion for such values and processes the hexadecimal format as regular OCTET STRING values. For backward compatibility, ASN-1Step supports the new command line option, -csvEmptyOctStrIfFails, which can be used to instruct the CSV encoder to include empty OCTET STRING values with OSS.PrintFunctionName directives if conversion fails.

ASN-1Step 10.1.2

ASN-1Step 10.1.1

ASN-1Step 10.1.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v10.1.0.
  • The limit of 50 on the user-specified maximum number of CSVs created for multiple components of each SET OF and SEQUENCE OF type values has been removed in the -csv option. See the following example:
    asn1step bcas.asn test.ber -decodePdu BBCard -csv dash,4000
    The total number of additional CSVs for all SET OF and SEQUENCE OF types is limited to the maximum between the user-specified number and 50, multiplied by 50.
  • ASN-1Step now issues a warning when an untagged open type precedes the extension marker in an extensible type in violation of the tag uniqueness requirement (see X.680 clauses 25.7, 52.7.3, 52.7.4, X.681 14.2 b) NOTE 2).
  • ASN-1Step now correctly considers extensible internal subtype constraints on TIME types as OER-invisible. Previously, such constraints were treated as OER-visible, which could prevent optimized encoding of some TIME types. For example, a value of the following type T was previously encoded using the non-optimized TIME encoding:
    T ::= DATE ("2020-10-10", ...)
    It is now encoded using the optimized DATE encoding.

ASN-1Step 10.0.1

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v10.0.1.
  • ASN-1Step now allows you to specify the maximum number of messages to decode and optionally, when possible, to skip the specified number of messages before decoding starts.
  • When creating and printing ASN.1 types and values, ASN-1Step now supports open types derived from a component relation constraint nested within a contents constraint applied to fields that contain BIT STRING or OCTET STRING types.
  • When an OSS.PrintFunctionName directive that contains an OSS conversion function specified as a parameter is applied to OCTET STRING types and conversion is possible, the value notation will now include the actual BCD, TBCD, ASCII, IP address, or time stamp values inside an ASN.1 comment, for example:
    '0711071136492B0000'H -- 2007-11-07 11:36:49 --

ASN-1Step 9.0.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v9.0.0.
  • ASN-1Step now supports X.680 Amendment 1, which relaxes the IMPORTS clause to allow symbols to be imported from the latest module version, as indicated by the object identifier. The IMPORTS clause can now include WITH SUCCESSORS and WITH DESCENDANTS as the SelectionOption.
  • The JSON encoders now support an alternative form of encoding values of BIT STRING or OCTET STRING types with contents constraints when an ENCODED BY is absent. When you select this method, the values are encoded as text (the JSON value represents the contained value) rather than hex string.

ASN-1Step 8.3.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v8.3.0.
  • Support for the Canonical Packed Encoding Rules (ALIGNED and UNALIGNED), as specified by ITU-T Recommendation X.691 (08/2015) | ISO/IEC 8825-2:2015 has been added:
    • The new -cper and -cuper compiler options instruct ASN-1Step to enable support for CPER.
    • For better security, the CPER decoder operates in strict mode: every deviation from the X.691 standard is reported.
  • ASN-1Step will now accept any valid value of GeneralizedTime and UTCTime types and will encode it according to X.690 Clause 11.7 and 11.8. Previously, it was assumed that the input value already satisfied the restrictions imposed on its encoding by these clauses. Therefore
    • All encoders reported an error if the time differential was present in the input value.
    • The DER/CER/COER encoders reported an error if the input value represented as a NULLTERM string did not contain the minutes or seconds component.
  • The XER and E-XER encoders now encode any valid NULLTERM values of GeneralizedTime and UTCTime types without making additional changes. Previously, when the input value did not contain a minutes or seconds component, the encoders unnecessarily included a zero minutes or seconds component in the encoding and recalculated the fractional part, if any.
  • The JSON encoders will now always encode non-special REAL values as JSON numbers. The JSON decoders will accept both encoding forms: JSON number and JSON object encodings. Previously, non-special REAL values could be encoded as JSON objects. For example, an unconstrained REAL type value was encoded as {base10value: N } The decoders reported an error when such values were encoded as JSON numbers.

ASN-1Step 8.2.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v8.2.0.
  • Conformance to Draft ITU-T Recommendation X.jsoner:
    • ASN-1Step supports the JSON Encoding Rules. The existing -json command-line option instructs the compiler to enable support for X.jsoner at runtime.
    • The JSON codec supports the following encoding instructions:
      • JER:ARRAY
      • JER:BASE64
      • JER:NAME
      • JER:OBJECT
      • JER:TEXT
      • JER:UNWRAPPED
  • ASN-1Step supports 3GPP CDR files containing messages encoded using various encoding rules that are specified inside record headers. Currently the BER, PER, UPER, and XER encoding rules are supported.

ASN-1Step 8.1.1

ASN-1Step 8.1.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v8.1.0.
  • ASN-1Step now supports 64-bit precision (19-20 decimal digits) in TIME type fractions.
  • The PER encoder-decoder implementation now conforms to the recent X.691 corrigendum (2015): an encoding contained in a BIT STRING should be at least one octet for PER ALIGNED and 1 bit for PER UNALIGNED.
  • ASN-1Step now fully conforms to ITU-T X.680 Clause 46.3c. This clause states that the minutes component of a GeneralizedTime type value can be omitted when the difference between local time and UTC is an integral number of hours. Previously, a false error could be issued when the minutes component was absent.

ASN-1Step 8.0.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v8.0.0.
  • The following command-line options enable support for the new JSON flags and features:
    • The -json option allows you to specify one or more valid JSON runtime flags to control the way the JSON encodings are created.
    • The -jsonIndent option allows you to specify the indentation size for the JSON encoding generated by ASN-1Step.
    For example:
    asn1step -json JSON_ENC_ABSENT_COMPONENTS:JSON_ENC_DEFAULT_VALUES jtest.asn -encode value1 -jsonIndent 4
  • ASN-1Step now includes support for the 2015 version of the ASN.1 standard.

ASN-1Step 7.4.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v7.4.0
  • The OSS runtime flags are now available through the following ASN-1Step options: -flags <flags>, -encFlags <flags>, and -decFlags <flags>.
    You can specify one or more valid runtime flags separated by commas or colons, immediately after the option. To disable a flag, precede it by an exclamation point ("!").
  • The -csv <flags> command-line option has been added to ASN-1Step to enable support for the Comma-Separated Values (CSV) format when decoding messages.
  • ASN-1Step skips over pad bytes (0x00 or 0xFF) when decoding concatenated BER messages.
  • When encoding with PER, ASN-1Step no longer encodes components defined with a DEFAULT value when the value to be encoded is the default one (of a simple type, as noted in clause 19.5 of X.691).

ASN-1Step 7.1.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v7.1.0
  • ASN-1Step now supports Octet Encoding Rules (OER) and Canonical Octet Encoding Rules (COER) as defined in "Rec. ITU-T X.696 | ISO/IEC 8825-7", rather than only the subset of ASN.1 types as defined in the "NTCIP 1102:2004 Octet Encoding Rules (OER) Base Protocol" document.
    The Octet Encoding Rules (OER), like the Packed Encoding Rules (PER), produce compact encodings by taking advantage of information present in the ASN.1 schema to limit the amount of information included in each encoded message. However, in contrast to PER, OER favors encoding/decoding speed over compactness of the encodings.

ASN-1Step 7.0.0

  • ASN-1Step now includes ASN.1 Studio v7.0.0
  • ASN-1Step command-line utility improvements:
    • The "-listPduIds" option now accepts the optional "true" argument which, when specified, instructs ASN-1Step to limit the number of printed PDU identifiers available for decoding to unreferenced PDU types and to types marked with PDU directives.
    • Support for two new options: -allSampleAsn1Values and -sampleAsn1Value. With these options, you can create files containing sample messages for PDU types in the ASN.1 input that are in ASN.1 value notation format.
    • Error messages and warnings issued now have the same format as error messages issued by other OSS ASN.1 Tools components. Note that ASN-1Step messages used as headers or as part of a trace may still start with the "ASN1STEP" prefix to visually separate output from different operations.