Stream-Oriented Indefinite Length Encode Methods

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BER messages can be encoded directly to an output stream such as a file, network or memory stream. The ASN1C compiler has the -stream option to generate encode functions of this type. For each ASN.1 production defined in the ASN.1 source file, a C# encode method may be generated. This function will convert a populated variable of the given type into an encoded ASN.1 message.

The basic principles of the generation of the encode methods are the same as for the memory-buffer based BER/DER encode methods described in the preceding section. Stream-oriented BER encoding starts from the beginning of the message until the message is complete. This is sometimes referred to as "forward encoding". This differs from memory-buffer based BER where encoding that is done from back-to-front. Indefinite lengths are used for all constructed elements in the message. Also, there is no permanent buffer for stream-oriented encoding, all octets are written directly to the output stream.