4 idl2eth - CORBA IDL to Ethereal Plugin Generator
12 B<idl2eth> is a program that takes a user specified B<CORBA IDL>
13 file and generates B<"C"> source code for an B<Ethereal> "plugin".
15 This resulting file can be compiled as an B<Ethereal> plugin, and
16 used to monitor B<GIOP/IIOP> traffic that is using this IDL.
18 B<idl2eth> is actually a shell script wrapper for two B<Python> programs.
24 B<ethereal_be.py> - Contains the main IDL Visitor Class
26 B<ethereal_gen.py> - Contains the Source Code Generator Class
29 B<idl2eth> supports heuristic dissection of GIOP/IIOP traffic,
30 and some experimental code for explicit dissection, based on
31 Object Key <-> Repository Id mapping.
32 However, code for heuristic based plugins is
33 generated by default, and users should consider this the preferred
34 method unless you have some namespace collisions.
39 Currently there are no options. B<idl2eth> can be invoked as follows.
41 1. To write the C code to stdout.
43 idl2eth <your_file.idl>
48 2. To write to a file, just redirect the output.
50 idl2eth echo.idl > packet-test.c
57 B<idl2eth> will look for B<ethereal_be.py> and B<ethereal_gen.py> in
58 B<$PYTHONPATH/site-packages/> and if not found, will try the current
61 The B<-p> option passed to omniidl (inside B<idl2eth>) indicates where
62 B<ethereal_be.py> and B<ethereal_gen.py> will be searched. This may
63 need tweaking if you place these files somewhere else.
65 If it complains about being unable to find some modules (eg tempfile.py),
66 you may want to check if PYTHONPATH is set correctly.
68 eg: PYTHONPATH=/usr/lib/python1.5/
78 B<idl2eth> (including B<ethereal_be.py> and B<ethereal_gen.py>) are part of
79 the B<Ethereal> distribution. The latest version of B<Ethereal> can
80 be found at B<http://www.ethereal.com>.
82 B<idl2eth> uses B<omniidl>, and IDL parser, and can be found at
83 B<http://www.uk.research.att.com/omniORB/omniORB.html>
87 Some of the more important things to do are:
92 Improve Explicit dissection code.
95 Improve command line options.
98 Improve decode algorithm when we have operation name collision.
106 Frank Singleton <frank.singleton@ericsson.com>