Wireshark-bugs: [Wireshark-bugs] [Bug 12402] format DIS header timestamp mm:ss.nnnnnn

Date: Tue, 03 May 2016 06:45:01 +0000

Comment # 2 on bug 12402 from
So, as I read IEEE Std 1278.1-2012, even "absolute timestamps" don't correspond
to the Wireshark data type FT_ABSOLUTE_TIME, as it's not necessarily a value
that's relative to a fixed point in time; as 3.1 "Definitions" says:

    absolute time: A reference time synchronized across the exercise, which may
or may not be Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) time depending on exercise
agreements.

so the only way to make absolute timestamps be an FT_ABSOLUTE_TIME would be to
have a preference that specifies the base of the reference time (as, for
example, an offset from UTC).

FT_ABSOLUTE_TIME is displayed as year, month, day, hour, minute, and
second+fraction of a second - but, without such a preference (or an arbitrary
decision that they're UTC no matter what), that won't happen for DIS absolute
timestamps.

Presumably that's why an FT_RELATIVE_TIME value is use.

*Relative* time stamps would only be FT_RELATIVE_TIME.

However, I'm not seeing where Wireshark 1.12 or later would display an
FT_RELATIVE_TIME field as anything other than
seconds-and-fractions-of-a-second, unless a particular dissector formats it
specially - which the 1.12 DIS dissector doesn't appear to.

Are you seeing 1.12 display DIS timestamps as minutes and seconds?  If so, do
you have a capture that displays this?  Or was it a pre-1.12 release?

As for displaying FT_RELATIVE_TIME values as something other than seconds and
fractions of a second, there are at least three ways to do that:

    1) have the "display" field for an FT_RELATIVE_TIME field allow a
particular field to be displayed as seconds and fractions of a second, or as
one or more different flavors of "stuff bigger than a second, seconds, and
fractions of a section", including but not limited to minutes, seconds, and
fractions of a second;

    2) have a preference for the way for *all* FT_RELATIVE_TIME fields are
displayed with a choice amongst those possibilities;

    3) 1), but with a "user-selectable" option wherein the preference from 2)
controls it.


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