4.2. Miscellaneous

   Comments begin with "/*" and end with "*/".

   Optional components are denoted by enclosing them in "[[ ]]" double
   brackets.

   Single byte entities containing uninterpreted data are of type
   opaque.

4.3. Vectors

   A vector (single dimensioned array) is a stream of homogeneous data
   elements. The size of the vector may be specified at documentation
   time or left unspecified until runtime. In either case the length
   declares the number of bytes, not the number of elements, in the
   vector. The syntax for specifying a new type T' that is a fixed
   length vector of type T is

       T T'[n];

   Here T' occupies n bytes in the data stream, where n is a multiple of
   the size of T. The length of the vector is not included in the
   encoded stream.

   In the following example, Datum is defined to be three consecutive
   bytes that the protocol does not interpret, while Data is three
   consecutive Datum, consuming a total of nine bytes.

       opaque Datum[3];      /* three uninterpreted bytes */
       Datum Data[9];        /* 3 consecutive 3 byte vectors */







 
RFC 2246              The TLS Protocol Version 1.0          January 1999


   Variable length vectors are defined by specifying a subrange of legal
   lengths, inclusively, using the notation <floor..ceiling>.  When
   encoded, the actual length precedes the vector's contents in the byte
   stream. The length will be in the form of a number consuming as many
   bytes as required to hold the vector's specified maximum (ceiling)
   length. A variable length vector with an actual length field of zero
   is referred to as an empty vector.

       T T'<floor..ceiling>;

   In the following example, mandatory is a vector that must contain
   between 300 and 400 bytes of type opaque. It can never be empty. The
   actual length field consumes two bytes, a uint16, sufficient to
   represent the value 400 (see Section 4.4). On the other hand, longer
   can represent up to 800 bytes of data, or 400 uint16 elements, and it
   may be empty. Its encoding will include a two byte actual length
   field prepended to the vector. The length of an encoded vector must
   be an even multiple of the length of a single element (for example, a
   17 byte vector of uint16 would be illegal).

       opaque mandatory;
             /* length field is 2 bytes, cannot be empty */
       uint16 longer;
             /* zero to 400 16-bit unsigned integers */

4.4. Numbers

   The basic numeric data type is an unsigned byte (uint8). All larger
   numeric data types are formed from fixed length series of bytes
   concatenated as described in Section 4.1 and are also unsigned. The
   following numeric types are predefined.

       uint8 uint16[2];
       uint8 uint24[3];
       uint8 uint32[4];
       uint8 uint64[8];

   All values, here and elsewhere in the specification, are stored in
   "network" or "big-endian" order; the uint32 represented by the hex
   bytes 01 02 03 04 is equivalent to the decimal value 16909060.

4.5. Enumerateds

   An additional sparse data type is available called enum. A field of
   type enum can only assume the values declared in the definition.
   Each definition is a different type. Only enumerateds of the same
   type may be assigned or compared. Every element of an enumerated must





 
RFC 2246              The TLS Protocol Version 1.0          January 1999


   be assigned a value, as demonstrated in the following example.  Since
   the elements of the enumerated are not ordered, they can be assigned