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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] How to access the payload of a protocol in tshark

From: Christopher Maynard <Christopher.Maynard@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2012 20:48:14 +0000 (UTC)
Joerg Mayer <jmayer@...> writes:

> I'm looking for a way to access the payload of a protocol in tshark and
> haven't found one.

I was recently trying to do something similar for one of our older protocols
that nobody had yet written a dissector for, but I was unable to come up with a
solution.  For me, it would have been good enough if something like "-e
data.data[n:m]" or "-e frame[n:m]" worked, but unfortunately neither of them do.

I ended up having to write a basic enough dissector to get at least some of the
data of interest out of it quickly.

> What I'd like to use with the -e option is something like "<protocol>.payload"
> for protocols that have a payload that is not dissected via the protocol
dissector.
> This element could be a hidden field.
> The output could be either text, hex or raw(binary), depending on a -E 
> parameter (or maybe a new option), see the -z follow feature.
> 
> Is this already possible and I just missed it?

I am unaware of such a feature ... but maybe I missed it too.

> If not, does this feature sound reasonable?

Yes! +1

- Chris