Re: Examples of ASN.1 for SMIng.txt

[Juergen Schoenwaelder <schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de>]

>>>>> DUBUISSON Olivier writes:

Olivier> For example, that would allow SMIng designers to use OSS
Olivier> Nokalva's syntax checker that can be freely downloaded from
Olivier> their website, that is, use the full power of ASN.1 (or be
Olivier> able to use it at any time if needed in the future) and
Olivier> benefit of the tools that are in place.

A generic ASN.1 tool will only understand ASN.1 and not SMIng. There
are several semantic things in the ASN.1 proposal which a generic
ASN.1 tool has no chance to understand and check and thus you still
need a specific SMIng compiler.

The SMI is its own little language with its own syntax and semantic
constraints. If you base this language on other languages such as
ASN.1 or XML, you will be able to use generic tools to validate the
input whether it is "valid" ASN.1 or XML. But generic tools will never
be able to check the specific SMI syntax and semantic constraints.

Also note that there are several SMIv1/SMIv2 implementations and
whatever comes out of SMIng will have to be integrated into these
implementations. None of the SMIv1/SMIv2 implementations I am aware
of is based on a generic ASN.1 instrastructure.

/js

-- 
Juergen Schoenwaelder      Technical University Braunschweig
<schoenw@ibr.cs.tu-bs.de>  Dept. Operating Systems & Computer Networks
Phone: +49 531 391 3289    Muehlenpfordtstr. 23, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
Fax:   +49 531 391 5936    <http://www.ibr.cs.tu-bs.de/~schoenw/>