SetIncomingAndReceive and setOutgoing

Question

I have an applet works very smooth on JCOP card (T=1). Recently, I am trying to put this applet into Oberthur CosmopolIC Lite V1 and Gemplus GemXpresso Pro card (both T=1), and get very strange behavior on these 2 card. After my diagnosis, I found out the return code of setIncomingAndReceive and setOutgoing are different on these 3 cards.
The logic of my applet is using setIncomingAndReceive and setOutgoing to define the lc and le. Thus, for an APDU case 2 command such as 00 86 00 00 08, the JCOP card will get lc=0 and le=8, Oberthur card will get lc=8 and le=8, and Gemplus card will get lc=8 and le=0. Anyone know the correct behavior of these 2 methods? Or I should not use these 2 methods to define the lc and le?
A sample code can reproduce this problem is listed below for your reference, any comment will be appreciated!
package test;
* <p>Title: </p>
* <p>Description: </p>
* <p>Copyright: Copyright (c) 2003</p>
* <p>Company: </p>
* @author unascribed
* @version 1.0
import javacard.framework.*;
import javacard.security.*;
public class test extends Applet {
// Class instruction type (CLA)
static final byte TEST_CLA = (byte)0x00;
// Instruction (INS)
static final byte CASE2_TEST = (byte)0x86;
// SW
static final short SW_ERROR_1 = (short)0x6601;
static final short SW_ERROR_2 = (short)0x6602;
static final short SW_ERROR_3 = (short)0x6603;
static final short SW_ERROR_4 = (short)0x6604;
static final short SW_LE_NOT_8 = (short)0x6605;
static final short SW_OK = (short)0x6600;
// index of sys[]
static final short LC = (byte)0;
static final short LE = (byte)1;
static final short LA = (byte)2;
// transient objects
private short[] sys = JCSystem.makeTransientShortArray( (short)14, JCSystem.CLEAR_ON_DESELECT );
protected test( byte[] buffer, short offset, byte length ) {
register();
public static void install( byte[] bArray, short bOffset, byte bLength ) {
new test( bArray, bOffset, bLength );
public boolean select() {
return true;
public void deselect() {
public void process( APDU apdu ) {
byte[] apdu_buffer = apdu.getBuffer();
sys[ LC ] = apdu.setIncomingAndReceive();
if( selectingApplet() )
return;
if( apdu_buffer[ ISO7816.OFFSET_CLA ] != TEST_CLA )
ISOException.throwIt( ISO7816.SW_CLA_NOT_SUPPORTED );
switch( apdu_buffer[ ISO7816.OFFSET_INS ] ) {
case CASE2_TEST:
Case2( apdu, (short)0, (short)8 );
return;
default:
ISOException.throwIt( ISO7816.SW_INS_NOT_SUPPORTED );
private void processCase2( short lc, short le ) {
ISOException.throwIt( (short) (Util.makeShort( (byte)sys[LC], (byte)sys [LE])));
// if( sys[ LC ] != 0 )
// ISOException.throwIt( SW_ERROR_1 );
// ISOException.throwIt( (short) (sys[ LC ]) );
if( _le == (short)0 )
ISOException.throwIt( SW_ERROR_2 );
if( (_lc > (short)0) && ( sys[ LC ] != _lc ) )
ISOException.throwIt( SW_ERROR_3 );
if( (_le > (short)0) && ( sys[ LE ] != _le ) )
ISOException.throwIt( (short) (sys[ LE ]) );
// ISOException.throwIt( SW_ERROR_4 );
if( sys[ LC ] != 0 )
// ISOException.throwIt( SW_ERROR_1 );
ISOException.throwIt( (short) (sys[ LC ]) );
private void Case2( APDU apdu, short lc, short le ) {
byte[] buffer = apdu.getBuffer();
sys[ LE ] = apdu.setOutgoing();
apdu.setOutgoingLength( (short)8 );//sys[ LE ] );
processCase2( lc, le );
Util.setShort( buffer, (short)0, (short)200 );
apdu.sendBytes( (short)0, (short)8 );

Answer 1

This response involves off-card and on-card answers !
--------------Off card
What if the Le was 10H and middeware was expecting 20H ? I leave it up to the middleware to check the results.
I've run into this where the card specifications changed and the middleware was "hard coded" to process the Le of a certain value. This ultimately crashed the middleware when the card spec changed. The proper design would have been for the middleware to CHECK the Le and process that amount of data.
--------On card
You might have an on-card design that was expecting to return data but wanted to make sure the Le was the proper size for the results.see setOutgoingLength()