Ethereal-dev: RE: [Ethereal-dev] New protocol WBXML

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From: Biot Olivier <Olivier.Biot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 6 Feb 2003 12:51:17 +0100
Hi Guy,

Thanks for checking it in!

> Presumably you'll use the WBXML dissector handle in 
> packet-wsp.c at some point?

There actually was a "wmlc" dissector handle in packet-wsp.c

> ...and add packet-wbxml.c to Makefile.nmake.  (An invariant 
> to preserve
> with all changes to Makefile.am or Makefile.nmake is "the contents of
> the DISSECTOR_SRC macro is exactly the same in both files.")

Oops, sorry for ignoring the MSVC people ;^)

> According to
> 	
> http://www.ee.oulu.fi/research/ouspg/protos/testing/c05/wap-wmlc/
> 
> "WMLC is basically an encoding scheme specified by WBXML (WAP 
> Binany XML
> content format) specification."
> 
> So is it more correct to say that the WBXML dissector is dissecting
> WBXML or to say that it's dissecting WMLC, or is there something other
> than either of those that's the correct thing to say?

Well, WBXML is a binary representation of (a subset of) XML. The only XML
feature WBXML does not support is XML namespaces. WBXML also defines a atate
machine with 2 states: tag state and attribute state.

The WAP Forum defined a set of XML "content types" and associated WBXML
representations for those XML content types that could be carried
over-the-air. They include WML (Wireless Markup Language), but also SI
(Service Indication), SL (Service Loading), CO (Cache Operation), PROV (WAP
Provisioning document) etc.

A WMLC document is a WBXML representation of a WML document (1:1 transform),
using the common WBXML grammar and the WMLC syntax/semantics. The WMLC
representation will define token representations for XML tags and attributes
and sometimes also extension tokens which can have a content-type specific
usage. In other words: WMLC means "The WBXML representation of WML content".
If you want, WMLC is a WBXML application.

Hope this helps!

Regards,

Olivier