Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
3.1. Macro Invocation

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3.1. Macro Invocation

3.1. Macro Invocation

Within an information module, each macro invocation appears as:

     <descriptor> <macro> <clauses> ::= <value>

where <descriptor> corresponds to an ASN.1 identifier, <macro> names the macro being invoked, and <clauses> and <value> depend on the definition of the macro. (Note that this definition of a descriptor applies to all macros defined in this memo and in [2].)

For the purposes of this specification, an ASN.1 identifier consists of one or more letters or digits, and its initial character must be a lower-case letter. (Note that hyphens are not allowed by this specification, even though hyphen is allowed by [1]. This restriction enables arithmetic expressions in languages which use the minus sign to reference these descriptors without ambiguity.)

For all descriptors appearing in an information module, the descriptor shall be unique and mnemonic, and shall not exceed 64 characters in length. (However, descriptors longer than 32 characters are not recommended.) This promotes a common language for humans to use when discussing the information module and also facilitates simple table mappings for user-interfaces.

The set of descriptors defined in all "standard" information modules shall be unique.

Finally, by convention, if the descriptor refers to an object with a SYNTAX clause value of either Counter32 or Counter64, then the descriptor used for the object should denote plurality.


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Connected: An Internet Encyclopedia
3.1. Macro Invocation