<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<!DOCTYPE chapter SYSTEM "chapter.dtd">

<chapter>
  <header>
    <copyright>
      <year>2008</year>
      <year>2015</year>
      <holder>Ericsson AB, All Rights Reserved</holder>
    </copyright>
    <legalnotice>
  Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
  you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
  You may obtain a copy of the License at
 
      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  limitations under the License.

  The Initial Developer of the Original Code is Ericsson AB.
    </legalnotice>

    <title>Introduction</title>
    <prepared>Ingela Anderton Andin</prepared>
    <responsible></responsible>
    <docno></docno>
    <approved></approved>
    <checked></checked>
    <date>2008-01-22</date>
    <rev>A</rev>
    <file>introduction.xml</file>
  </header>

  <section>
    <title>Purpose</title>
    <p>The Public Key application deals with public-key related file 
    formats, digital signatures, and <url href="http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc5280.txt">
    X-509 certificates</url>. It is a library application that
    provides encode/decode, sign/verify, encrypt/decrypt, and similar
    functionality. It does not read or write files, it expects or returns
    file contents or partial file contents as binaries.
    </p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Prerequisites</title>
    <p>It is assumed that the reader is familiar with the Erlang programming 
    language and has a basic understanding of the concepts of using public-keys 
    and digital certificates.</p>
  </section>

  <section>
    <title>Performance Tips</title>
    <p>The Public Key decode- and encode-functions try to use the NIFs
    in the ASN.1 compilers runtime modules, if they can be found.
    Thus, to have the ASN1 application in the
    path of your system gives the best performance.</p>
  </section>

</chapter>

