This function provides the ability to construct an ASN1_STRING
containing data that is not owned by the constructed ASN1_STRING. The
resulting ASN1_STRING, when freed, will not free the data, and it is
the caller's resposibility to ensure that the data lives past the
lifetime of any returned ASN1_STRING.
Why? you may ask? Many places where ->data and ->length were used
directly in the past before the opaquification of ASN1_STRING were
for this purpose, whether used for actual static data, or to turn
bytes created by and in control of the caller into an ASN1_STRING
for temporary use as an input. This function makes this easier
to do without making copies.
The function deliberately does not allow the creation of a BIT_STRING
as this would require also always providing unused bits, which is
annoying and unnecessary for almost all potential use cases.
For: https://github.com/openssl/openssl/issues/29861
For: https://github.com/openssl/openssl/issues/30162
Reviewed-by: Neil Horman <nhorman@openssl.org>
Reviewed-by: Saša Nedvědický <sashan@openssl.org>
MergeDate: Wed Jun 3 11:42:49 2026
(Merged from https://github.com/openssl/openssl/pull/30964)
Bob BeckandNorbert Pocs
68c0321e90