1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
|
.\" Copyright (c) 1994, 1996, 1997
.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
.\" modification, are permitted provided that: (1) source code distributions
.\" retain the above copyright notice and this paragraph in its entirety, (2)
.\" distributions including binary code include the above copyright notice and
.\" this paragraph in its entirety in the documentation or other materials
.\" provided with the distribution, and (3) all advertising materials mentioning
.\" features or use of this software display the following acknowledgement:
.\" ``This product includes software developed by the University of California,
.\" Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and its contributors.'' Neither the name of
.\" the University nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse
.\" or promote products derived from this software without specific prior
.\" written permission.
.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
.\" WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
.\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
.\"
.TH PCAP_NEXT_EX 3PCAP "13 October 2013"
.SH NAME
pcap_next_ex, pcap_next \- read the next packet from a pcap_t
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.ft B
#include <pcap/pcap.h>
.ft
.LP
.ft B
int pcap_next_ex(pcap_t *p, struct pcap_pkthdr **pkt_header,
.ti +8
const u_char **pkt_data);
const u_char *pcap_next(pcap_t *p, struct pcap_pkthdr *h);
.ft
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pcap_next_ex()
reads the next packet and returns a success/failure indication.
If the packet was read without problems, the pointer pointed to by the
.I pkt_header
argument is set to point to the
.I pcap_pkthdr
struct for the packet, and the
pointer pointed to by the
.I pkt_data
argument is set to point to the data in the packet. The
.I struct pcap_pkthdr
and the packet data are not to be freed by the caller, and are not
guaranteed to be valid after the next call to
.BR pcap_next_ex() ,
.BR pcap_next() ,
.BR pcap_loop() ,
or
.BR pcap_dispatch() ;
if the code needs them to remain valid, it must make a copy of them.
.PP
.B pcap_next()
reads the next packet (by calling
.B pcap_dispatch()
with a
.I cnt
of 1) and returns a
.I u_char
pointer to the data in that packet. The
packet data is not to be freed by the caller, and is not
guaranteed to be valid after the next call to
.BR pcap_next_ex() ,
.BR pcap_next() ,
.BR pcap_loop() ,
or
.BR pcap_dispatch() ;
if the code needs it to remain valid, it must make a copy of it.
The
.I pcap_pkthdr
structure pointed to by
.I h
is filled in with the appropriate values for the packet.
.PP
The bytes of data from the packet begin with a link-layer header. The
format of the link-layer header is indicated by the return value of the
.B pcap_datalink()
routine when handed the
.B pcap_t
value also passed to
.B pcap_loop()
or
.BR pcap_dispatch() .
.I http://www.tcpdump.org/linktypes.html
lists the values
.B pcap_datalink()
can return and describes the packet formats that
correspond to those values. The value it returns will be valid for all
packets received unless and until
.B pcap_set_datalink()
is called; after a successful call to
.BR pcap_set_datalink() ,
all subsequent packets will have a link-layer header of the type
specified by the link-layer header type value passed to
.BR pcap_set_datalink() .
.PP
Do
.B NOT
assume that the packets for a given capture or ``savefile`` will have
any given link-layer header type, such as
.B DLT_EN10MB
for Ethernet. For example, the "any" device on Linux will have a
link-layer header type of
.B DLT_LINUX_SLL
even if all devices on the system at the time the "any" device is opened
have some other data link type, such as
.B DLT_EN10MB
for Ethernet.
.SH RETURN VALUE
.B pcap_next_ex()
returns 1 if the packet was read without problems, 0
if packets are being read from a live capture and the timeout expired,
\-1 if an error occurred while reading the packet, and \-2 if
packets are being read from a ``savefile'' and there are no more
packets to read from the savefile.
If \-1 is returned,
.B pcap_geterr()
or
.B pcap_perror()
may be called with
.I p
as an argument to fetch or display the error text.
.PP
.B pcap_next()
returns a pointer to the packet data on success, and returns
.B NULL
if an error occurred, or if no packets were read from a live
capture (if, for example, they were discarded because they didn't pass
the packet filter, or if, on platforms that support a read timeout that
starts before any packets arrive, the timeout expires before any packets
arrive, or if the file descriptor for the capture device is in
non-blocking mode and no packets were available to be read), or if no
more packets are available in a ``savefile.'' Unfortunately, there is
no way to determine whether an error occurred or not.
.SH SEE ALSO
pcap(3PCAP), pcap_geterr(3PCAP), pcap_dispatch(3PCAP),
pcap_datalink(3PCAP)
|
