Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] RE : RE : Truncated field in XML detailed export result

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2006 09:42:46 -0800
Olivier LENORMAND wrote:

In this case, it's just that I never imagined that the "show" field was
not completed, so the lazy man I am used it while parsing the XML export
in order to avoid decoding the value field by myself.

Note that the "show" field doesn't, as far as I can tell, show up in the current PDML and NetPDL spec in sense we're currently using it:

	http://www.nbee.org/Docs/NetPDL/PDML.htm

which describes PDML and refers to the Field Visualization Variables in NetPDL:

	http://www.nbee.org/Docs/NetPDL/NetPDLVisualization.htm#NetPDLAssociatedData

which indicates that there's a "showvalue" field - which "contains the field value in a 'printable' form". This isn't necessarily the displayed text in the packet detail pain; for example, that section seems to imply that for a field with a value_string table, i.e. a field whose numerical value isn't the only value displayed, and where particular numerical values have particular text strings associated with them and the text string is displayed as well (the example they give is the type of an ICMP message), the "showmap" field contains the text string.

Note, though, that the "printable" form of a field value might depend on the field in ways that would require that a script reading PDML have to know what particular field it's parsing *and* perhaps what version of what application generated the PDML. Given that, decoding "value" might be the best idea, as it's just raw hex data, which would only depend on the version of the application if some versions of the application have a bug and put the *wrong* hex data out.