weird ASPATH in update message

[Jianhong Xia <]

Hi,

I downloaded the BGP raw data of update messsage
on 01/31/2002 from Ripe RRC00, and used route_btoa
to get the text file for the update events.

Normally, in the ASPATH part, there are no more than
40 unique ASes, But I found that sometimes there are
more than 100 ASes there and most of them are in brackets.
What does it mean? Why are there so many ASes in this
breacket, "[...]"?

Thanks.
Jianhong

-----------
PS:

Here is an example:

in the file: updates.20020131.1847

....
...

TYPE: BGP4MP/MESSAGE/Update
FROM: 64.211.147.146 AS3549
TO: 193.0.0.1 AS12654
ORIGIN: INCOMPLETE
ASPATH: 3549 701 23089 [1 3 71 151 226 714 852 1221 1668 2140 2497 2856
3303 3320 3360 3489 3599 3703 3758 3908 4546 4628 4637 4657 4694 5006 6253
6
517 6555 6878 6983 7017 7098 7176 7260 7462 7473 7543 7914 8011 8052 8112
8153 9739 9824 10199 10311 10530 10625 10656 10796 10829 10838 10910 10911
 10947 10994 11015 11060 11101 11351 11354 11426 11427 11492 11521 11532
11567 11707 11853 11854 11908 11955 12021 12042 12083 12169 12179 12180
122
62 12270 12271 13343 13367 13373 13471 13560 13581 13606 13632 14011 14265
14366 14412 14465 14606 14743 14764 14803 14893 15009 16924 17011 17361 1
7506 17676 18440 18509 18565 18806 18834 18988 19019 19262 19444 19541
19568 19577 19648 19831 20001 20231 22504 24604]
NEXT_HOP: 64.211.147.146
AGGREGATOR: AS23089 157.130.101.226
COMMUNITY: 3549:2256 3549:30840
ANNOUNCE
  65.215.97.0/24