Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Private DLT_s and WTAP_ENCAP_s

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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 17:19:37 -0800

On Dec 8, 2003, at 7:42 AM, Tomas Kukosa wrote:

  would not it be usefull to make some reserved DLT_s and WTAP_ENCAP_s?
It would be intended only for private usage when the global new values are not really necessary. I think the DLT_USER0-DLT_USER15 and WTAP_ENCAP_USER0-WTAP_ENCAP_USER15 should be enough.

Why I ask? I would like to try something with new DLTs/WTAP_ENCAPs and
I do not want to neither disturb other pople with my private values nor
to keep private versions of libpcap and wiretap sources.

As long as it's made clear that there won't ever be any code in tcpdump.org tcpdump or libpcap, ethereal.com Ethereal, etc. to support any particular interpretations of those reserved values (i.e., anybody who uses that stuff privately will have to maintain it indefinitely, and if they use it in a product, there won't ever be any support in official releases for reading capture files with those link-layer types), I think it'd be reasonable to have private DLT_ values.

WTAP_ENCAP_ values are internal to Ethereal; there is no guarantee that the numerical values for given WTAP_ENCAP_ tags will remain the same from release to release. The only thing that would be reserved would be the names WTAP_ENCAP_USER0 through WTAP_ENCAP_USER15.