Subject: Best way to document a packet protocol?

From: Stephane Bortzmeyer <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 21:48:37 +0100

Some IETFers already use the excellent Q&A site StackOverflow
<http://stackoverflow.com/>. Unlike your typical Web forum,
StackOverflow ranks the answers by the votes received so the "best"
answers tend to be at the top. People gain reputation by the votes
they receive so you can sort out the good advisers from the
beginners. And the level of the answers is indeed quite good (unlike
the typical Web forum site where clueless people spit out random
answers).
 
Here is an opportunity to discover it through a question that will
probably motivate some people here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2034636/best-way-to-document-a-packet-protocol/2045230

I often find myself in the situation of wanting to write a breakdown
of the protocol that some program (either my own or some other by
reading its code or RCE) uses for its network communication, but there
is just no standard on how to document the structure of packets in
those.

What I usually do is to write the protocol documentation with Markdown
and specify packet structures like this:

    [uint32 size] [uint32 command] [var parameters]

However, I am looking for a convenient and standardized way of solving this.

---

From: Bob Braden <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:56:39 -0800

Not a new question. Please see RFC 31, Feb 1968, for the earliest 
proposed solution to your problem, AFAIK. This proposal by Bobrow and 
Sutherland was actually used exactly one time, AFAIK: RFC 88, by your 
truly, in Jan 1971. I guess it was not such a hot idea.

Bob Braden