Wireshark · Ethereal-dev: Re: [ethereal-dev] dissect_lpd enhancement

[Guy Harris <guy@xxxxxxxxxx>]

> I haven't checked in the control-character
> change for follow-tcp-stream yet; I'll put a similar fix in, but probably
> with a user-controllable GUI button, since not everyone wants control
> characters displayed as caret-character all the time.  For example, I'd
> like to be able to toggle back and forth to check to see if the caret
> is really part of the tranmission or not.

Part of the problem may be that the text display in the "Follow TCP
Stream" window works only for, well, text-based protocols, and LPD isn't
fully text-based.

Perhaps what's needed, long term (once we arrange that TCP segments get
handed in order, with duplicate data removed, to protocols that run atop
TCP, which we ultimately want for other reasons as well), is a scheme
wherein the text in the "Follow TCP Stream" window is generated by the
dissector for the protocol running atop TCP; purely text-based protocols
could just put the text there, but other protocols could add an
interpretation of the non-text data.  (Note that even HTTP isn't
*purely* text - you might be downloading an image, for example.)