Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] [Wireshark-commits] rev 38304: /trunk/epan/dissectors/ /trun

From: Jeff Morriss <jeff.morriss.ws@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 04 Aug 2011 18:45:11 -0400
Stephen Fisher wrote:
On Wed, Aug 03, 2011 at 09:36:40PM -0400, Maynard, Chris wrote:

On Tue, Aug 02, 2011 at 11:22:03AM -0400, Jeff Morriss wrote:

Do we already require Python to build Wireshark [even from a source
distribution]?
I don't think so.
Isn't it?

===>    C:\Python27\python.exe: /cygdrive/c/Python27/python.exe     <===

Sorry, I was thinking along the lines of "do we require python to be linked into Wireshark" which is no. But yes, we do use it for building. AFAIK, it is only used to build register.c and packet-ncp2222.c. At least for register.c, it can also be built with /bin/sh but much more slowly.

But this still doesn't mean it's *required* for building from a source tarball. And I think we don't: the README says you only need Python if you're going to modify the NCCP dissector (that is, rebuild packet-ncp2222.c). As you say, building register.c falls back to sh if Python's not there.

(So building the ASN.1 dissectors at compile time would add a requirement to those building from the source tarballs.)