>>>>> On 10 Mar 2000 09:34:47 +1100, Julian Assange <proff@iq.org> said:

> While ocaml provides appropriate udp send/receive functions, the
> best mechanism for understanding the structure of dns packets is
> unknown to me. DNS packets are `loosely' structured. That is, there
>[...]
> Vixie's named/bind daemon doesn't even attempt to describe the
> structure in any sort of data form, but rather uses the code flow
> itself to describe the structure (e.g pulling 16 bits, assigning it
> to a variable, advancing the interpretation pointer by 16 bits,
> testing the variable, pulling 32 bits etc).

I would unpack the packet into a char list and then process it with something like:

let dispatch cont = function
	| t1::t2::rest -> (match (ord t1)*256+(ord t2) with
		| 1 -> type1 cont rest
		| 2 -> type2 cont rest
		| _ -> error...
		)
	| _ -> error...
and type1 cont = function
	| f1::f2::f3::...::rest] -> cont (...f1...f2...f3...) rest
	| _ -> error...
and type1 cont = function
	| f1::f2::rest] -> dispatch (fun v rest' -> cont (...f1...f2...v...) rest') rest
	| _ -> error...
;;

note that cont is a continuation, that will be used to process the
rest of the string after the current value is parsed.

You could also use an ocaml parser.

> This method is incredibly error-prone, and it's hard to see a good
> way of fitting it in with ocaml's type system. Any ideas on the best
> way to approach this problem?

Getting the types right can be a little tricky, but is doable.

../Dave