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Wireshark-dev: [Wireshark-dev] XML library for use in dissector

From: Ahmad Fatoum <ahmad.fatoum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 28 Jan 2017 20:04:11 +0100
Hello everyone,

As part of a school project, we intend to extend the Ethernet POWERLINK (packet-epl.c) dissector in Wireshark to be able to read in the XML device description files (XDD) and use that information to dissect the packet payload (The data field is currently displayed as a byte stream).

As we would like to have the changes eventually merged into the trunk, we want to check what XML library we should use?

We are hesitant to rely on GMarkup, because we don't control the input, and don't want to later find out that it doesn't manage some more complex device profiles. Wireshark depends on lex(1), but I wouldn't want to reinvent the wheel and rather use some out-of-the-box parser.

So what's the stance on dissectors pulling in dependencies like libxml? Any other suggestions?

With kind regards
Ahmad Fatoum

ps: Out of curiosity, is there a particular reason e.g. PROFINET is a plugin while Ethernet POWERLINK is statically linked?