wireshark/wiretap/README.developer

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$Id: README.developer,v 1.1 2003/04/02 20:21:45 guy Exp $
This is a very quick and very dirty guide to adding support for new
capture file formats. If you see any errors or have any improvements,
submit patches - free software is a community effort....
To add the ability to read a new capture file format, you have to:
add a new WTAP_FILE_ value for the file type to
"wiretap/wtap.h", and increase WTAP_NUM_FILE_TYPES by 1;
write an "open" routine that can read the beginning of the
capture file and figure out if it's in that format or not,
either by looking at a magic number at the beginning or by using
some form of heuristic to determine if it's a file of that type
(if the file format has a magic number, that's what should be
used);
write a "read" routine that can read a packet from the file and
supply the packet length, captured data length, and time stamp,
and have the "open" routine set the "subtype_read" member of the
"wtap" structure supplied to it to point to that routine;
write a "seek and read" routine, if necessary, and have the
"open" routine set the "subtype_seek_read" member of the "wtap"
structure to point to that routine, otherwise set it to
"wtap_def_seek_read";
write a "close" routine, if necessary (if, for example, the
"open" routine allocates any memory), and set the
"subtype_close" member of the "wtap" structure to point to it,
otherwise leave it set to NULL;
add a pointer to the "open" routine to the "open_routines[]"
table in "file.c" - if it uses a magic number, put it in the
first section of that list, and, if it uses a heuristic, put it
in the second section, preferably putting the heuristic routines
for binary files before the heuristic routines for text files;
add an entry for that file type in the "dump_open_table[]" in
"file.c", giving a descriptive name, a short name that's
convenient to type on a command line (no blanks or capital
letters, please), and pointers to the "can_write_encap" and
"dump_open" routines if writing that file is supported (see
below), otherwise just null pointers.
To add the ability to write a new capture file format, you have to:
add a "can_write_encap" routine that returns an indication of
whether a given packet encapsulation format is supported by the
new capture file format;
add a "dump_open" routine that starts writing a file (writing
headers, allocating data structures, etc.);
add a "dump" routine to write a packet to a file, and have the
"dump_open" routine set the "subtype_write" member of the
"wtap_dumper" structure passed to it to point to it;
add a "close" routine, if necessary (if, for example, the
"dump_open" routine allocates any memory, or if some of the file
header can be written only after all the packets have been
written), and have the "dump_open" routine set the
"subtype_close" member of the "wtap_dumper" structure to point
to it;
put pointers to the "can_write_encap" and "dump_open" routines
in the "dump_open_table[]" entry for that file type.