Huge thanks to our Platinum Members Endace and LiveAction,
and our Silver Member Veeam, for supporting the Wireshark Foundation and project.

Ethereal-dev: Re: [Ethereal-dev] Help Debug

Note: This archive is from the project's previous web site, ethereal.com. This list is no longer active.

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2001 11:48:01 -0800 (PST)
> I work under Linux on a packet dissector, but I'm not used to it.
> I would like to debug only my packet-dissector.
> Is it possible?

"Debug only [your] packet dissector" in what sense?

I.e., what do you mean by "only"?

GDB doesn't take an object file as an argument, it takes an executable
image file as an argument, so you can't tell the debugger "debug
'packet-mine.o'", you have to tell it "debug 'ethereal'".

However, you can set breakpoints in your dissector, so that it'll only
stop in your dissector, not in other parts of Ethereal.

(WARNING: if you set a breakpoint in a dissector in Ethereal, and click
on a frame containing the protocol dissected by your dissector, you will
probably lock up your entire X session, as GTK+'s CList widget, bless
its heart, does, I think, a keyboard grab when you click on a packet,
and that keyboard grab will be in effect at the time your dissector is
called, and thus at the time the breakpoint occurs, so you probably
won't be able to type anything to the window in which GDB is running.

Therefore, if you can do so, I would suggest debugging in Tethereal,
instead.)