2.6. Plugins

Plugins are a concept that is closely related to packets and packet definition files desribed in the previous section. When bufdump encounters a known packet, it displays a formatted version of the header that give the packet id, packet size, and the name of the device the packet came from. By default, however, the body of the packet is dumped as just a set of hexadecimal numbers.

Since the body of each packets type is by the physicist that produced its readout code, bufdump cannot know how to format packet bodies. Device physicsts, however may write plugins that can produce a meaningful formatted dump of the packet. Plugins are Tcl code which, when integrated with bufdump, allow it to display the body of a known packet in a more meaningful format. Chapter 3: The File menu describes how to incorporate a plugin in to bufdump. If you want to write a plugin refer to: Chapter 6: Extending bufdump.