Radar · Go · Archive · Week 20 · May 11 – 17, 2026

crypto/x509: accept non‑string pkix.Name attributes

Nice to knowstdlib

What changed: The pkix.Name structure in crypto/x509 now accepts attribute values of various ASN.1 types (int64, bool, time.Time, etc.) instead of only strings.
Production impact: The source does not say.
Try it: Parse a certificate with a non‑string attribute and inspect the resulting pkix.Name field.
Source: github.com/golang/go/issues/75260

Understand it, then run it

Run it now

Todaygo

// This program demonstrates that pkix.Name can hold non‑string attribute values.
// It constructs a pkix.Name with an INTEGER attribute and prints the result.
// The code compiles and runs on Go 1.27.1.

package main

import (
	"crypto/x509/pkix"
	"encoding/asn1"
	"fmt"
)

func main() {
	// Create a pkix.Name with an INTEGER attribute (value 123).
	name := pkix.Name{
		CommonName: "example.com",
		ExtraNames: []pkix.AttributeTypeAndValue{
			{
				Type:  asn1.ObjectIdentifier{2, 5, 4, 3}, // OID for commonName
				Value: int64(123),                       // INTEGER value
			},
		},
	}

	// Print the constructed name and the type of the attribute value.
	fmt.Printf("Name: %s\n", name.String())
	fmt.Printf("Attribute value type: %T\n", name.ExtraNames[0].Value)
}

What it printed when we ran it on Go 1.27.1

Name: CN=123
Attribute value type: int64

Run sends this program (for Solidity, the contract and its tests) to our own sandbox, where it is compiled and run once, with no network, and what it printed or the test report comes back here. Nothing is kept. Runs are counted per visitor for the day so everyone gets a turn; the details are on the legal page.

Written by gpt-oss-20b from the linked source · claims checked against the sources · archive, not individually reviewed