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== Introduction

[[ChCodeOverview]]

=== Source overview

Wireshark consists of the following major parts:

* Packet dissection - in the '/epan/dissector' and '/plugin/*' directories

* File I/O - using Wireshark's own wiretap library

* Capture - using the libpcap/winpcap library, in '/wiretap'

* User interface - using the Qt or $$GTK+$$ and associated libraries

* Utilities - miscellaneous helper code

* Help - using an external web browser and GTK text output

[[ChCodeStyle]]

=== Coding Style

The coding style guides for Wireshark can be found in the "Code style"
section of the file 'doc/README.developer'.

[[ChCodeGLib]]

=== The GLib library

Glib is used as a basic platform abstraction library. It doesn't provide
any direct GUI functionality.

To quote the Glib Reference Manual:
____
GLib provides the core application building blocks for libraries and
applications written in C. It provides the core object system used in GNOME, the
main loop implementation, and a large set of utility functions for strings and
common data structures.
____

GLib contains lots of useful things for platform independent development.
See https://developer.gnome.org/glib/[] for details about GLib.

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