Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Ethereal plugin versioning question

["Guy Harris" <gharris@xxxxxxxxx>]

Filonenko Alexander-AAF013 said:

> Our users test/troubleshoot a proprietary system. The system gets updated
> periodically and part of the update are protocol changes. Since several
> versions of the system coexist we maintain multiple plugin versions of
> same protocol. Changes from version to version are usually not
> significant. It is desirable that dissector's protocol id does not change
> from version to version to allow finding dissector by name, this way other
> dissectors will not be affected if they use find_dissector. Since users
> often share equipment to monitor different releases of the system,
> different plugin sets matching version of the system must be be installed
> on the same computer at the same time. I can see several options of how
> this can be accomplished.

    ...

5. Instead of having multiple plugin versions for different protocol
versions, given that the changes from version to version usually aren't
significant, have a *single* plugin for *all* versions of the protocol,
with a protocol preference that specifies the version of the protocol that
it should dissect.