[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Oct 19, 2003, at 11:51 AM, Emanuele Caratti wrote:

> I did some tests with conversation:
> in dissect_tacplus I setup the conversation, if new I save the key with
> conversation_add_proto_data, otherwise I retrieve the key with
> conversation_get_proto_data.

How did you get the key in the first place?  There is currently no 
mechanism in Ethereal to provide a UI to let you set a property for a 
conversation.

> But dissect_tacplus is called for every
> tacplus packet, and it has to call find_conversation. I thought that 
> give too
> much overhead ( but i don't know how much ),

Many other dissectors do so as well.

> and no benefit.

One benefit of having a UI to let you set a property for a conversation 
is that you can just select a packet and, for example, set the TACACS+ 
key for the conversation - you don't have to enter IP addresses or port 
numbers.

> If i'm not wrong, the conversation dissector is called only from
> try_conversation_dissector.

A given dissector might be called from there *and* from other routines; 
most conversation dissectors aren't