9.4.1 General

37.4833GPPE1 Application Protocol (E1AP)Release 17TS

E1AP ASN.1 definition conforms to ITU-T Rec. X.691 [7], ITU-T Rec. X.680 [8] and ITU-T Rec. X.681 [9].

The ASN.1 definition specifies the structure and content of E1AP messages. E1AP 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 E1AP 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 where 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 will have different IE IDs.

If an E1AP 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.