Wireshark · Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Routines for registering dissectors with a "portnumber", and looking up dissecto

[Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stephen Fisher wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 06:45:38PM +0100, news.gmane.com wrote:
>
> > The first should be illustrated. The pinfo member fd points to a 
> > structure that has been changed between 1.2.x and 1.4.x. You this 
> > structure to retrieve the packet number, used to identify 
> > conversations.
>
> Using accessor functions to set and get values as in object-oriented 
> programming instead of directly using the variables would help prevent 
> problems like this.

And submitting dissectors to Wireshark (rather than relying on a "fixed" 
API) can prevent even more problems like this (by, in effect, pushing 
the maintenance of the dissector to whoever is changing the API in the 
first place).  :-)

(Yes, yes, I know...  I too maintain a few custom dissectors that my 
employer would probably not let me publish.  But I also accept that I 
have to modify the things from time to time as the API evolves.)

Personally I'm not convinced that settling on a fixed API is such a good 
idea anyway...  API stability in a branch, sure...