Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] libwireshark documentation?

From: Eloy Paris <peloy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:52:04 -0400

On Tue, Apr 01, 2008 at 06:34:45PM +0200, Sébastien Tandel wrote:

>   If you have the source code, you should notice the doc directory in
> which stands several readme's describing the API.

I did notice the doc/ directory and the various README files.

However, the documentation in the doc/ directory is written for
dissector writers, not for people writing applications that use
libwireshark services. Check by yourself by grepping for some
important API function calls (for an application developer) like
epan_dissect_new(), epan_dissect_run(), epan_dissect_free(), etc. Very
little of what is there is useful for someone writing an application
that uses libwireshark.

I am looking for documentation of the public libwireshark API, not the
internal API for writing dissectors and plugins.

Cheers,

Eloy Paris.-

> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:24 AM, Eloy Paris <peloy@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 
> > Is there any type of documentation for developers writing applications
> > that use libwireshark services?
> >
> > I am prototyping an application that uses libwireshark for packet
> > dissection and the only documentation that I've found is the source code
> > itself. That is fine when there is no other documentation available,
> > but 1. it takes longer to develop an application, and 2. it is really
> > hard to know without a good API documentation what is internal stuff one
> > should not rely on or use, and what is stuff one can use.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > Eloy Paris.-