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.TH PCAP_LOOP 3PCAP "5 April 2008"
.SH NAME
pcap_loop, pcap_dispatch \- process packets from a live capture or savefile
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.ft B
#include <pcap/pcap.h>
.ft
.LP
.ft B
typedef void (*pcap_handler)(u_char *user, const struct pcap_pkthdr *h,
.ti +8
			     const u_char *bytes);
.ft
.LP
.ft B
int pcap_loop(pcap_t *p, int cnt,
.ti +8
pcap_handler callback, u_char *user);
int pcap_dispatch(pcap_t *p, int cnt,
.ti +8
pcap_handler callback, u_char *user);
.ft
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.B pcap_loop()
processes packets from a live capture or ``savefile'' until
.I cnt
packets are processed, the end of the ``savefile'' is
reached when reading from a ``savefile'',
.B pcap_breakloop()
is called, or an error occurs.
It does
.B not
return when live read timeouts occur.
A value of \-1 or 0 for
.I cnt
is equivalent to infinity, so that packets are processed until another
ending condition occurs.
.PP
.B pcap_dispatch()
processes packets from a live capture or ``savefile'' until
.I cnt
packets are processed, the end of the current bufferful of packets is
reached when doing a live capture, the end of the ``savefile'' is
reached when reading from a ``savefile'',
.B pcap_breakloop()
is called, or an error occurs.
Thus, when doing a live capture,
.I cnt
is the maximum number of packets to process before returning, but is not
a minimum number; when reading a live capture, only one
bufferful of packets is read at a time, so fewer than
.I cnt
packets may be processed. A value of \-1 or 0 for
.I cnt
causes all the packets received in one buffer to be processed when
reading a live capture, and causes all the packets in the file to be
processed when reading a ``savefile''.
.PP
.ft B
(In older versions of libpcap, the behavior when
\fIcnt\fP
was 0 was undefined; different platforms and devices behaved
differently, so code that must work with older versions of libpcap
should use \-1, nor 0, as the value of
\fIcnt\fP.)
.ft R
.PP
.I callback
specifies a routine to be called with three arguments:
a
.I u_char
pointer which is passed in the
.I user
argument to
.B pcap_loop()
or
.BR pcap_dispatch() ,
a
.I const struct pcap_pkthdr
pointer pointing to the packet time stamp and lengths, and a
.I const u_char
pointer to the first
.B caplen
(as given in the
.I struct pcap_pkthdr
a pointer to which is passed to the callback routine)
bytes of data from the packet.
.SH RETURN VALUE
.B pcap_loop()
returns 0 if
.I cnt
is exhausted, \-1 if an error occurs, or \-2 if the loop terminated due
to a call to
.B pcap_breakloop()
before any packets were processed.
It does
.B not
return when live read timeouts occur; instead, it attempts to read more
packets.
.PP
.B pcap_dispatch()
returns the number of packets processed on success; this can be 0 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.''  It returns \-1 if an error occurs or \-2 if the loop
terminated due to a call to
.B pcap_breakloop()
before any packets were processed.
.ft B
If your application uses pcap_breakloop(),
make sure that you explicitly check for \-1 and \-2, rather than just
checking for a return value < 0.
.ft R
.PP
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.
.SH SEE ALSO
pcap(3PCAP), pcap_geterr(3PCAP), pcap_breakloop(3PCAP)