From mdeane@ANSI.org Thu May 31 17:59:31 2001 Received: from email1.ansi.org (email1.ansi.org [216.173.49.99]) by dkuug.dk (8.9.2/8.9.2) with ESMTP id RAA49337 for ; Thu, 31 May 2001 17:59:30 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from mdeane@ANSI.org) Received: by email1.ansi.org with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) id ; Thu, 31 May 2001 11:59:22 -0400 Message-ID: <2F81C8110D55D411882A0020356797B2194E93@email1.ansi.org> From: Matthew Deane To: "'SC 22 Distribution List'" Subject: SC 22 N 3240 - SC 22/WG 11 Response to SC 22 N 3213, Liaison Stat ement from ITU-T SG 7 Regarding ISO/IEC 11404 Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 11:59:21 -0400 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Programming languages, their environments and system software interfaces Secretariat: U.S.A. (ANSI) ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 N 3240 TITLE: SC 22/WG 11 Response to SC 22 N 3213, Liaison Statement from ITU-T SG 7 Regarding ISO/IEC 11404 DATE ASSIGNED: 2001-05-31 SOURCE: SC 22/WG 11 Convener (W. Wakker) BACKWARD POINTER: N/A DOCUMENT TYPE: Other document (Defined) PROJECT NUMBER: 22.17 STATUS: The SC 22/WG 11 response has been forwarded to ITU-T SG 7. ACTION IDENTIFIER: FYI DUE DATE: DISTRIBUTION: Text CROSS REFERENCE: DISTRIBUTION FORM: Def Address reply to: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC22 Secretariat Matt Deane ANSI 25 West 43rd Street New York, NY 10036 Telephone: (212) 642-4992 Fax: (212) 840-2298 Email: mdeane@ansi.org _______ end of title page; beginning of text ______________ ISO/IEC JTC1/SC22/WG11 N 475 Dear Olivier Dubuisson: The following is in response to your liaison statement regarding ISO/IEC 11404 and its revision. 1. At the JTC1/SC22/WG11 meeting of 2001-04-27 / 2001-04-28 in Copenhagen, your liaison statement was discussed and I hope that this letter satisfies your concerns. 2. We will update the normative references, as you have suggested. 3. Regarding harmonization of ASN.1 and ISO/IEC 11404, we are very ethusiastic about maintaining harmony among both documents, including, possibly, an annex on ASN.1 in the 11404 revision. Our intent is to use the existing data type models from ASN.1 and other ISO/IEC standards in revising ISO/IEC 11404 to capture and distinguish the datatype notions that are now in common use. We look forward to working with you to clarify our understanding of the ASN.1 data types, including any emerging work, and to get consistent definitions where appropriate. 4. We note that the scope of ASN.1 is much wider than that of ISO 11404, but not so intensive with respect to distinction and characterization of datatypes. Because of its association with programming languages, a major objective of ISO/IEC 11404 is to distinguish types by their computational characteristics, not just their values, which is the extent of the ASN.1 characterization. We see these two standards as having a large overlap in the identification of datatypes, but complementary roles with respect to definition and representation of datatypes. For example, both ISO/IEC 8824-1 and ISO/IEC 11404 define the Integer datatype in terms of the values in the space. But ISO/IEC 11404 goes on to characterize the Integer type as having addition, multiplication and ordering, and requires a type definition to say whether it preserves those operations, because that is important when mapping the new type into a programming language. So a credit card number is not an Integer in ISO/IEC 11404, although it could be represented by an Integer in ISO/IEC 8824-1. 5. We are looking forward to a successful collaboration with ITU-T regarding ASN.1 and the revision of ISO/IEC 11404. We consider this a continuation of earlier joint work that caused ISO/IEC 11404:1996 to contain several concepts derived directly from ISO 8824-1:1994. Sincerely, Frank Farance Project Editor for ISO/IEC 11404 revision US International Representative (NCITS/L8) to SC22/WG11 --------------------------------------------------------- [Original liaison statement.] TO: ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 22 FOR: Action CONTACT: Olivier Dubuisson France Télécom R&D Tel: +33 2 96 05 38 50 Fax: +33 2 96 05 39 45 Email: Olivier.Dubuisson@francetelecom.com The ASN.1 Group would like to inform you about the planned withdrawal of the obsolete ISO/IEC 8824:1990 which is referenced in the "Normative References" section of ISO/IEC 11404. The ISO/IEC 8824:1990 standard was made obsolete in 1994 with the publication of ISO/IEC 8824-1 which corrects many problems that existed in the 1990 version of the standard. The current version of the standard is ISO/IEC 8824-1:1997. Please update ISO/IEC 11404 to refer to the current version of the ASN.1 standard which is: ITU-T Recommendation X.680 (1997) | ISO/IEC 8824-1:1998, Information technology - Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1): Specification of basic notation. Please also note that one of the main purposes of ASN.1 is to provide a language for describing data which is independent of the machine architecture and independent of programming language. A description of data written in ASN.1 can translate easily to any high-level language and (for example) result in a C structure, a C++ class, a Java class, a Pascal record, or a Cobol copy file. This allows a protocol writer to create a specification which is independent of machine architecture and programming language while allowing software developers to choose which ever language and machine architecture best suits their needs. Indeed, when using any of the encoding rules defined in ISO/IEC 8825-1 or 8825-2, a communicating node does not need any knowledge of which programming language or machine architecture is in use by any of the communicating peers. The ASN.1 group is willing to assist you with updating the ISO/IEC 11404 standard to take advantage of the strength of ASN.1 in describing data with notation that is independent of programming language or machine architecture. More information on ASN.1, including free books and free download of tools, can be found at http://asn1.elibel.tm.fr or http://www.oss.com. _______ end of text ____________________________________________