9.3.1 General

36.4233GPPEvolved Universal Terrestrial Radio Access Network (E-UTRAN)Release 17TSX2 Application Protocol (X2AP)

X2AP ASN.1 definition conforms to ITU-T Rec. X.680 [27] and ITU-T Rec. X.681 [28].

Sub clause 9.3 presents the Abstract Syntax of the X2AP protocol with ASN.1. In case there is contradiction between the ASN.1 definition in this sub clause and the tabular format in sub clause 9.1 and 9.2, the ASN.1 shall take precedence, except for the definition of conditions for the presence of conditional elements, in which the tabular format shall take precedence.

The ASN.1 definition specifies the structure and content of X2AP messages. X2AP messages can contain any IEs specified in the object set definitions for that message without the order or number of occurrence being restricted by ASN.1. However, for this version of the standard, a sending entity shall construct an X2AP message according to the PDU definitions module and with the following additional rules:

– IEs shall be ordered (in an IE container) in the order they appear in object set definitions.

– Object set definitions specify how many times IEs may appear. An IE shall appear exactly once if the presence field in an object has value "mandatory". An IE may appear at most once if the presence field in an object has value "optional" or "conditional". If in a tabular format there is multiplicity specified for an IE (i.e. an IE list) then in the corresponding ASN.1 definition the list definition is separated into two parts. The first part defines an IE container list in which the list elements reside. The second part defines list elements. The IE container list appears as an IE of its own. For this version of the standard an IE container list may contain only one kind of list elements.

NOTE: In the above, "IE" means an IE in the object set with an explicit ID. If one IE needs to appear more than once in one object set, then the different occurrences have different IE IDs.

If an X2AP message that is not constructed as defined above is received, this shall be considered as Abstract Syntax Error, and the message shall be handled as defined for Abstract Syntax Error in clause 10.