NAME

       pcap_init - initialize the library

SYNOPSIS

       #include <pcap/pcap.h>

       char errbuf[PCAP_ERRBUF_SIZE];

       int pcap_init(unsigned int opts, char *errbuf);

DESCRIPTION

       pcap_init()  is used to initialize the Packet Capture library.  opts specifies options for
       the library; currently, the options are:

       PCAP_CHAR_ENC_LOCAL
              Treat all strings supplied as arguments, and return all strings to the  caller,  as
              being in the local character encoding.

       PCAP_CHAR_ENC_UTF_8
              Treat  all  strings supplied as arguments, and return all strings to the caller, as
              being in UTF-8.

       On UNIX-like systems, the local character encoding is assumed to be UTF-8, so no character
       encoding transformations are done.

       On Windows, the local character encoding is the local ANSI code page.

       If  pcap_init() is not called, strings are treated as being in the local ANSI code page on
       Windows, pcap_lookupdev(3PCAP) will succeed if there is a device on which to capture,  and
       pcap_create(3PCAP) makes an attempt to check whether the string passed as an argument is a
       UTF-16LE string - note that this attempt is unsafe, as it may run  past  the  end  of  the
       string  - to handle pcap_lookupdev() returning a UTF-16LE string. Programs that don't call
       pcap_init() should, on Windows, call pcap_wsockinit() to initialize Winsock; this  is  not
       necessary  if  pcap_init()  is  called,  as  pcap_init() will initialize Winsock itself on
       Windows.

RETURN VALUE

       pcap_init() returns 0 on success and PCAP_ERROR on failure.  If  PCAP_ERROR  is  returned,
       errbuf  is  filled  in with an appropriate error message.  errbuf is assumed to be able to
       hold at least PCAP_ERRBUF_SIZE chars.

BACKWARD COMPATIBILITY

       This function became available  in  libpcap  release  1.9.0.   In  previous  releases,  on
       Windows, all strings supplied as arguments, and all strings returned to the caller, are in
       the local character encoding.

SEE ALSO

       pcap(3PCAP)

                                            4 May 2022                           PCAP_INIT(3PCAP)