Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] newbie question about dissection specifications
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From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2016 15:21:07 -0700
On May 30, 2016, at 1:44 PM, Christian Convey <christian.convey@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I'm starting a side project, and I was wondering if it might eventually be something useful to Wireshark developers.  Anyone mind weighing in?
> 
> It's a translator that does this:
> Input:
> 	• A declarative description of wire-level message layouts.

Note that there exists a third-party Wireshark plugin declarative description language that translates a packet description into interpreted code and interprets it:

	http://wsgd.free.fr

You might want to look at the language they're using, although it sounds as if:

> Output:
> 	• Generated C / C++ / Python / etc. code based on those layout descriptions.  For example:
> 		• Pretty-printing
> 		• C++ classes for accessing individual fields safely, including endian-ness correction.
> 		• C structs / unions / bit-fields for unchecked access to buffers supposedly having those formats.
> 		• C++ functions that create an appropriate Wireshark dissector.
> 		• Etc.

...your work is intended for more purposes than just Wireshark dissection, such as protocol implementations, so it might have different requirements.