This section contains the user manual of `wpcap.dll`, the dynamic library that contains the public WinPcap API. wpcap.dll exports a set of system independent functions for packet capture and network analysis. These functions allow to:

- obtain the list of the available network adapters
- retrieve various information about an adapter, like the description and the list of addresses
- sniff the packets using one of the network interfaces of the PC
- send packets to the network using different methods
- efficiently save packets to disk and load them with an interface similar to the one of live capture
- create packet filters from an high level language and apply them to the captured packets

wpcap.dll is compatible with libpcap, the well known packet capture library for Unix. This compatibility allows to write portable network tools that will work on the whole Win32 OS family and on all the major Unix flavors.

Several portions of the manuals present in this section derive directly from the man pages of tcpdump and libpcap, maintained by the tcpdump.org developers. Therefore, if you are looking for updated docs, you can consult the web site www.tcpdump.org.

## Note

Inside the manual, some functions are marked with the labels deprecated or discouraged. The meaning of these labels is the following:

- discouraged: the use of another function with similar purpose is suggested, however this one is still valid.
- deprecated: the function is present only for portability and backward compatibility. It should be avoided, and it is strongly suggested to use another equivalent function instead.