ASN.

1
Abstract Syntax Notation One
What is ASN.1
Way of representing objects

Used for abstraction in OSI model

Can represent simple atomic (Integer,

String etc.) and complex data structures
Why not JSON or XML
ASN.1 is chosen for efficiency. Not
babysitting the codec writers

JSON / XML takes up too much

overhead in transmitting
ASN.1 can do it with way less. Thus, less
bandwidth / lesser resources
But encoding / decoding / debugging is
hard.
 Compare XML / JSON
{ vehicle: {
wheelCount: 4,
registration: 3421
}}
73 bytes
A0 07 02 01 04 16 02 43 12
<vehicle> 8 bytes!
<wheelCount>4</wheelCount>
<registration>3421<registration>
</vehicle>
81 bytes
Note that in both cases, both the encoding and decoding entities
MUST have prior knowledge of the data structure
Encoding / Decoding
Done using encoding rules.

BER (Basic Encoding Rules) is the most

popular method
Used in TCAP, MAP, CAP

CER, DER and some others are present

Encoding / Decoding

Definite Infinite
Primitive Length Length
Types

Constructed Types

Basic Encoding Rules

Data Structure
Encoded as

TAG LENGTH CONTENT

Tag and Length are one or multiple

bytes
Content is zero or multiple bytes
Data Structure
The TAG identifies the data structure

LENGTH specifies the number of trailing

bytes in the CONTENT to follow

CONTENT...well...what do you think?

TAG LENGTH CONTENT

TAG Octets TAG

TAG consists of three parts in BER

Class
Indication of whether the structure is
primitive or compound
Tag value

Class P/C Tag

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
00 : Universal | 01: Application | 10: Context specific | 11: Private
TAG Octets TAG

In our car example:

{ vehicle: {
wheelCount: 4,
registration: 3421
}}
The wheel count is an integer.
ASN is of class UNIVERSAL (0x00), a PRIMITIVE (0) and
INTEGER (Tag 2)
Thus 0x02:

0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0
TAG Octets TAG

What happens when the tag value cannot

be represented in the given 5 bits. i.e.
Tags > 31
If the tag is greater than 30, The TAG
octet will become TAG octets.
The first bytes tag part will have five 1s
Then the other tailing bytes will
represent the value. in 7 bits each. with
MSB as 1.
The end is shown with MSB 0.
 Confused?
Good! Then lets try it out.
LENGTH Octets LENGTH

Definite lengths from 0 to 127 will be

represented in the length byte.

If the length is greater than 127, the long

form takes over (just like in TAG octets)

The MSB is made 1. The rest of the LSBs

represent the number of trailing bytes
which really gives out the length.
 Confused again?
Oh you poor souls!
LENGTH Octets LENGTH

The indefinite length is noted with a length

octet being 0x80. i.e. MSB 1 and rest zero
1000 0000

The contents in this case will be terminated

with a special ASN tag with TAG 0 and
LENGTH 0
i.e. 0x00 0x00
Food for thought: What happens if your data in one
of the containers has two consecutive 0s?
CONTENT Octets CONTENT

Contents can be a primitive data type like

INTEGER or String

Or it can be another Tag|Length|Content

structure or multiples of it.

As long as there are LENGTH bytes

trailing, there is no issue, whatever it is.
Lets look at TCAP with Wireshark
References

Laymens guide to ASN

http://goo.gl/XJqL4s

ITU specification document

http://goo.gl/PBXEup