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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Dynamic dissector plugins

From: Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:03:01 -0700

On Apr 22, 2009, at 12:24 AM, Rayne wrote:

Do I understand correctly that dissector plugins cannot be added dynamically during runtime, since all registration of protocols are done when Wireshark is started up?

All searching for plugins is also done when Wireshark is started up. It's not inconceivable that it could be modified to search afterwards, although I don't know whether there would be any problems with that. Obviously, plugins loaded after startup couldn't register dissector tables in which existing dissectors would register themselves without some extra stuff wherein a dissector could register in non-existent tables and then be really registered in those tables when they're created.