A C programming language binding for the general-purpose OSI Abstract Data Manipulation (OM) Application Program Interface (API) in IEEE Std 1224- 1993 is defined. This standard is intended for use by application developers, system implementors, test method writers, and users to support application portability at the source-code level. The API defined in this standard contains two major parts: an interface for accessing the services defined in the programming language independent specification, and an interface for language-specific services.

This standard defines an ISO 9989 :1990 {1}1C language binding to the language-independent API defined in IEEE Std 1224–1993 {2}. It is intended to support application portability at the source-code level and to be used by application developers, system implementors, test method writers, and users.

The purpose of this standard is to define a C programming language binding for the general-purpose OSI Abstract Data Manipulation (OM) Application Programming Interface (API) that is defined in IEEE Std 1224-1993. The OM interface is designed to be used with application-specific APIs that provide OSI services to allow the transfer of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) protocol elements in an application-independent fashion.