ref: 948870cffe2572efb68ef0b3873b36238fb53263
dir: /man/2/keyring-certtostr/
.TH KEYRING-CERTTOSTR 2 .SH NAME keyring: certtostr, pktostr, sktostr, strtocert, strtopk, strtosk \- encryption key conversion functions .SH SYNOPSIS .EX include "keyring.m" keyring:= load Keyring Keyring->PATH; strtocert: fn(s: string) : ref Certificate; certtostr: fn(c: ref Certificate): string; strtopk: fn(s: string) : ref PK; pktostr: fn(pk: ref PK) : string; strtosk: fn(s: string) : ref SK; sktostr: fn(sk: ref SK) : string; .EE .SH DESCRIPTION Certificates, public keys, and private keys are passed over networks and between applications using a Unicode representation. This collection of functions provide a means to convert adts supplied by the system to and from their portable textual representation. These routines are typically used as part of an I/O package for implementing security. .PP .B Strtocert takes a string argument containing a user name, a hash algorithm, a certifying authority and an expiration time. Fields are separated by a newline. The return value is a .BR Certificate . If the string is of improper format, the result is .IR nil . .PP .B Certtostr performs the inverse operation: takes the .B Certificate .I c and produces a text string suitable for communication over a network. .PP .B Strtopk and .B strtosk take as their arguments a string .I s representing the public and private keys respectively. .I S must contain an algorithm name, a user name and the key. Fields are separated by a newline. .B Strtopk returns a reference to the resulting .BR PK ; .B strtosk returns a reference to the resulting .BR SK . If the format of .I s is invalid, the result is .IR nil . .PP .B Pktostr and .B sktostr perform the inverse operations: they take a public key (secret key) and produce a printable representation as a string. .SH SOURCE .B /libinterp/keyring.c