Protocol Field IDs

Protocol Field Identifiers

A Protocol Field ID is used to identify a specific protocol group or field within a specific protocol. These IDs are used in various functional areas within the Trace Analyzer. This section describes the purpose and syntax of a protocol field ID.

Purpose

A protocol field ID is a text phrase which uniquely identifies a particular protocol field or group within the system. These IDs are used within data filter expressions as operands for arithmetic and logical operations. They are used within report template definitions to identify the source(s) of data for a particular report column.

Syntax

A protocol field ID is composed of a unique protocol identifier paired with a field identifier which uniquely identifies a specific field within the scope of that protocol. A protocol field ID takes the following form:

<PROTOCOL ID>:<FIELD ID>

where:

<PROTOCOL ID>: is a unique identifier for a protocol;
<FIELD ID>: is a qualified, unique identifier for a data field or group of fields within that protocol.

The <FIELD ID> portion of the overall ID may further be broken down as

[<GROUP SCOPE>.]<FIELD ID>

where:

<GROUP SCOPE>: is a scoping ID, which identifies the group of data fields, if any, within which <FIELD ID> is found.
<FIELD ID>: is a qualified, unique identifier for a data field or group of fields within that group scope.

For example, in the protocol field ID

TOK:DLC.DA.UL

the components are broken down as follows:

TOK: Refers to the Token Ring protocol.
DLC: Refers to the Data Link Control group of data fields within the TOK protocol.
DA: Refers to the Destination MAC Address group of data fields within the TOK:DLC group.
UL: Refers to the data field within the TOK:DLC.DA group which indicates whether the destination MAC address is universally or locally administered.