A PrintableString is a restricted character string type in the ASN.1 notation. It is used to describe data that consists only of a specific printable subset of the ASCII character set.

According to the ASN.1 Specification of basic notation,[1] the character set of PrintableString can be expressed as:

Name Graphic ASCII Code (DEC) ASCII Code (HEX)
Latin capital letters A,B, ... Z 65 - 90 41 - 5A
Latin small letters a,b, ... z 97 - 122 61 - 7A
Numbers 0,1, ... 9 48 - 57 30 - 39
SPACE (space) 32 20
APOSTROPHE ' 39 27
LEFT PARENTHESIS ( 40 28
RIGHT PARENTHESIS ) 41 29
PLUS SIGN + 43 2B
COMMA , 44 2C
HYPHEN-MINUS - 45 2D
FULL STOP . 46 2E
SOLIDUS / 47 2F
COLON : 58 3A
EQUALS SIGN = 61 3D
QUESTION MARK ? 63 3F

The PrintableString definition does not include the at sign (@) or ampersand (&). This sometimes causes problems for naive implementers who attempt to put an SMTP email address into an X.509 digital certificate Distinguished Name.

The PrintableString definition does not include asterisk (*) which means it must not be used to represent a wildcard in an X.509 digital certificate Distinguished Name.

See also

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References

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