I guess one other question is, how tied to the XML will the dissector
itself be? Does the XML simply list a large number of values for a
field, or do the values also indicate further action that should be
taken? If that is true, there could possibly be a significant
performance boost (per packet and startup) if you use a utility to
generate the dissector from the source XML.
> From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>
> On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 04:26:45PM -0500, Jim Duke wrote:
> > My preference would be to declare the enumerations (and the field
> > structure definitions) in XML and provide an XML parser that would
> > register the field arrays during initialization from XML data files.
>
> Would that require that Ethereal be linked with an XML library? If so,
> your dissector would have to be conditionally included, so that it's
> built in only if an XML library is present. (*Requiring* an XML library
> for Ethereal would not be desirable - I'd prefer not to add more
> required libraries, although libraries that, if present, mean Ethereal
> can do more are OK.)
