Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Next step in build process cleanup

[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Mar 25, 2003 at 04:36:52PM -0500, Ed Warnicke wrote:
>     I'd rather that
> A) Collapse configure and epan/configure into one (and maybe
>         wiretap/configure)
> not occur for the following reason:
> I'd like to see epan and wiretap independently distributable at some
> point so that they can be used by applications other than
> ethereal and tethereal.  I suspect there are others here who share
> similar ambitions.

I think it'd be a good idea to do that eventually, although
"eventually", as Joerg notes, requires that the APIs stabilize; I don't
know whether that's likely to happen in the near future.

It also brings up the issue of whether configuration files used by code
in epan (e.g., the "manuf" file) should be in a directory with
"ethereal" in its name or "epan" in its name, or whether the directory
shouldn't be hardcoded into epan but should be supplied by the caller.

(It also raises the question of whether dissectors should be:

	part of Ethereal/Tethereal;

	part of epan;

	part of a library unto themselves.

Note that Ethereal/Tethereal is *not* the only packet analyzer that uses
the dissectors in question - Packetyzer and zethereal use them as well,
but have their own UI code.)