The general procedure to decode an ASN.1 MDER message involves the following three steps:

The first step is the creation of a decode buffer. Asn1MderDecodeBuffer has a constructor that accepts messages stored in a byte array. It also has a constructor that accepts a System.IO.Stream so that messages may be streamed from various sources, such as from a file.

The second step is to invoke the generated decode method. The calling arguments were described earlier.

The final step is to apply your application-specific processing to the data. All data is contained within public member variables so access is quite easy.

A complete example showing how to invoke a decode method is as follows:

   try {
      // Step 1: create a decode buffer for the message to be decoded. 
      // This example will use a file input stream to decode a message
      // in a binary file.

      // Create an input file stream object
      Stream ins = File.OpenRead( filename );

      // Create a decode buffer object
      Asn1MderDecodeBuffer decodeBuffer = new Asn1MderDecodeBuffer (ins);

      // Step 2: create an object of the generated type and invoke the
      // decode method..
      PersonnelRecord personnelRecord = new PersonnelRecord ();
      personnelRecord.Decode (decodeBuffer);

      // Step 3: process the data
      if (trace) {
         System.Console.Out.WriteLine ("Decode was successful");
         personnelRecord.Print ("personnelRecord");
      }
   }
   catch (Exception e) {
      System.Console.Out.WriteLine (e.Message);
      Asn1Util.WriteStackTrace(e, Console.Error);
      return;
   }