Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Patch: value_string convenience macros

["Peter J. Creath" <peter-ethereal@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Michael Tuexen wrote:
> It saves to append the ',' at the end of VS_DEF.

I actually intentionally omitted the comma to make it a bit easier to 
intersperse normal definitions with VS_DEF()s.  E.g.:

const value_string my_vals[] = {
  VS_DEF(ONE),
  VS_DEF(TWO),
  VS_DEF(THREE),
  { 314, "PI" },
  VS_DEF(FOUR),
  VS_END
};

Guy Harris wrote:
> > They let you define value_string arrays in a somewhat more convenient fashion
> > when dealing with enums:
>
> ...or when dealing with #defines...
>
> ...but *ONLY* in those cases where the string corresponding to the value
> happens to be the enum or #define name, which is very often not the case
> for value_string tables

While this is often true for verbose dissection, I've found it's 
often quite useful to have the formal (#defined) names listed as 
well.  So I often have a my_short_vals[] comprised of just VS_DEF()s, 
followed by a my_long_vals[] with the more explicit, informative 
names.  This lets someone who knows the protocol well read it quickly 
(and unambiguously), and it provides clarity for the rest of the 
world.

	-P