newbie question about dissection specifications

[Christian Convey <christian.convey () gmail com>]

Hi guys,

I'm starting a side project, and I was wondering if it might eventually be
something useful to Wireshark developers.  Anyone mind weighing in?

It's a translator that does this:
Input:

   - A declarative description of wire-level message layouts.
   - Details regarding desired properties of C / C++ / Python / etc. code
   generated from those layout descriptions.

Output:

   - Generated C / C++ / Python / etc. code based on those layout
   descriptions.  For example:
      - Pretty-printing
      - C++ classes for accessing individual fields safely, including
      endian-ness correction.
      - C structs / unions / bit-fields for unchecked access to buffers
      supposedly having those formats.
      - C++ functions that create an appropriate Wireshark dissector.
      - Etc.

So the idea is a bit like the dual of Google Protocol Buffers.  Both tools
take a declarative description of message content, as the basis for
generated code.  But in the tool I'm working on, the description specifies
the wire-level layout

It's actually something that's inspired from my work in databases, where it
seems like the code describing the layout of disk pages is unnecessarily
convoluted.  But I think Wireshark would probably make a more interesting
test case for the tool, because (I assume) people develop new Wireshark
dissectors a lot more often than databases develop new page layouts.

I'd be grateful for any feedback / suggestions people have!

Cheers,
Christian Convey

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