["Allan Clarke" <clarke@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Title: Access to generalized dissecting

Greetings! I am new to this list and my network protocol understanding is quite limited. Because of this I need some guidance.

I need to be able to take capture files and do customized exporting without having to recode all the dissection logic. I currently take the capture file as input and have written some random logic (in Perl) to do simple dissection. But my user's needs are growing and I keep having to do more and more dissection; I am loathe to continue duplicating the dissection logic already in Ethereal.

One option is to run off an exported XML version of the data or perhaps a "print to file" version, but these can very quickly get large and slow to process. Is there a very terse text-based format that already exists?

What I'd like to do is develop some kind of a plugin that could be used to walk the dissected packet's tree and selectively export some of the data. Ideally, users could export using a feature tied into the Ethereal GUI.

I would greatly appreciate any pointer as to how to tackle this.

Many Thanks,

Allan