Mailing List Archive: RSA Key and signature lengths using gcry_pk

On Sun, Jan 23, 2005 at 01:51:51PM +0000, James Hume wrote:

Hello James,

> I am using the gcry_pk_* functions to generate keys and
> signatures. I have seen that sometimes the key lengths can vary, as
> can the signature length which either seems to be 128 bytes or 129
> bytes (in which case there always seems to be a leading null byte).

I assume that you are converting an MPI into an octet string with
gcry_mpi_print() according to GCRYMPI_FMT_STD. Whenever the given MPI
has the most significant bit set and FMT_STD is requested, the
mentioned function does add a null byte at the beginning of the octet
string representation. This is done in order to be able to
distinguish signed integers from unsigned ones (an integer is
recognized as a negative one when the most signifant bit is set).

In case you don't need to consider signed integers at all, just use
GCRYMPI_FMT_USG, which does not do the padding you seem to have
wondered about.

Thanks,
Moritz.

--
Moritz Schulte