Wireshark-users: Re: [Wireshark-users] daytime.string syntax

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 15 Aug 2008 11:07:34 -0700

On Aug 14, 2008, at 6:33 PM, Mirsepassi, Armin wrote:

Can someone explain the syntax for daytime.string? all I can find is a blank reference page:

http://www.wireshark.org/docs/dfref/d/daytime.html

What browser are you using, and on what OS? It doesn't show up as blank in Safari 3.1.2 on OS X Leopard, for example.

It just says that the field is a string, but that's because that's all it is - the Daytime Protocol is described by RFC 867:

	http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc867.html

and that RFC just says it's "the current date and time as a character string", without requiring any particular syntax for that string and, in fact, gives two very different formats that could be used.

The output is primarily intended for human consumption; as the RFC says, "For machine useful time use the Time Protocol (RFC-868)."