ASN2TXT v2.5 README

This file contains release notes on the ASN2TXT 2.5 release.

Contents

Introduction

ASN2TXT (ASN.1 to text translator) is a command-line program that is used to translate data encoded using the ASN.1 BER/CER/DER or PER encoding standards to various text formats. At the time of initial release, ASN2TXT supports translating data to XML and JSON (all encoding rules) and to CSV (BER/CER/DER).

All CSV translations require an associated ASN.1 schema, since the data are placed into columns corresponding to schema fields. XML or JSON translation may proceed without a schema if needed.

Release Notes

Users are encouraged to consult the documentation in the doc subdirectory for information regarding the transformation of input BER/CER/DER/PER files into text formats.

Up to date change log information is made available on our website.

New features appearing in the 2.5.0 release of ASN2TXT include the following:

Documentation

Documentation for this release is provided in the doc subdirectory of the installation.

Windows Installation

The steps to install ASN2TXT on a Windows system are as follows:

  1. Download the ASN2TXT package distribution file.
  2. ASN2TXT for Windows is packaged in a self-extracting executable file format. To install, all that should be necessary is to double-click this file after downloading and then following the setup wizard instructions.

An osyslic.txt license is necessary to enable the product to run. This should have been sent as an attachment in an E-mail message or should be available on the user's product download web page. Copy this file into the 'bin' subdirectory of the asn2txt installation.

ASN2TXT should now be operational. Refer to the ASN2TXT User's Guide document in the doc subdirectory for instructions on how to run the program.

Contents of the Release

The following subdirectories contain the following files (note: <installdir> refers to the installation directory that was specified during the installation process):
<installdir>\bin\asn2txt.exe
The asn2txt command-line program executable file.
<installdir>\bin\asn2txt.dll and .lib
The asn2txt dynamically-linked library (DLL) file and associated library. This may be linked into a user's application program to access the functions in the DLL.
<installdir>\bin\asn2txtgui.exe
Simple GUI wizard that uses the DLL and allows parameters to be specified through a GUI interface rather than on the command-line.
<installdir>\doc
This directory contains the ASN2TXT User's Guide file asn2txt.pdf file.
<installdir>\asn1specs
This directory contains a collection of common ASN.1 specification files from existing standards that have been used with the tool.
<installdir>\sample
This directory contains sample programs containing encoded BER/DER message files (these files have a '.dat' or '.bin' extension) and corresponding ASN.1 schema files (these have extension '.asn'). ASN2TXT can be used to translate these files to text formats. A perl script (asn2txt.pl) is provided to test the translation of all files to text formats.
<installdir>\sample_per
This directory contains sample data containing PER message files and corresponding ASN.1 schema files. ASN2TXT can be used to translate these files to XML. A Perl script is provided for this purpose.
 

Reporting Problems

Report problems you encounter by sending E-mail to support@obj-sys.com. The preferred format of example programs is the same as the sample programs. Please provide a message file and an ASN.1 syntax file and also indicate where the problem occurs.

If you have any further questions or comments on what you would like to see in the product or what is difficult to use or understand, please communicate them to us. Your feedback is important to us.