307295 - nsIASN1 APIs should provide unique keys, not display strings

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Security: PSM, defect)

Description

[Simon Fraser [no longer active]]

I'm trying to build a cert UI in Camino, and I don't want to use a nsIASN1Tree
(since that confounds model with view, and has an impedence mismatch with the
Cocoa NSOutlineView APIs). I'm thus forced to grovel around in the
nsIASN1Sequence for the attributes that are not exposed via nsIX509Cert.

Unfortunately the tag and type fields are not initialized for a nsIASN1Sequence
obtained from an nsIX509Cert, so the only way to identify what attribute a
nsIASN1Object refers to is the display name. This is not good, because they are
not guaranteed to be unique, and, anyway, the UI layer should be the one to map
key to display name via string bundle, not the backend.

Comment 1

[Dana Keeler (she/her) (use needinfo) [:keeler]]

I think the right direction to go in would be to remove the nsIASN1 APIs and just expose the necessary information via nsIX509Cert. To that end, if you need something exposed from nsIX509Cert, please feel free to file a new bug.