parsers for decoding network protocols?

Hi,


I'm looking into the above; specifically, decoding incoming streams.
This seems very similar to parsing text files, so I was wondering:


  . Does anyone use existing parser generator toolkits for
      this kind of task?
  . If so, any recommendations/tips/warnings etc.?


Performance shouldn't be an issue; data will be coming over very low
bandwidth connections. The interest in toolkits is simply because
there are lots of different protocols to handle, and I don't fancy
hand-writing parsers for each.


The only significant differences I can see between this and parsing
file data are:


1. data source is a connection rather than a file (OK, since it can
      be abstracted to a stream I think?)
2. tokens will be 8 bit rather than 7 bit ascii (OK, as long as
      toolkit allows definition via e.g. escape codes?)


Development & target environments are NT/2K/XP and C/C++. Free
toolkits preferable, although commercial also considered.


Many thanks,
Scott.

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