1CONVERT2DA(1)             BSD General Commands Manual            CONVERT2DA(1)
2

NAME

4     convert2da — BioWare 2DA/GDA to 2DA/CSV converter
5

SYNOPSIS

7     convert2da [options] file ...
8

DESCRIPTION

10     convert2da converts BioWare's 2DA and GDA files into (cleanly formatted)
11     ASCII 2DA or CSV files.  2DA files are two-dimensional arrays, or tables,
12     holding various information and used throughout many of the BioWare
13     games.  They can come in two flavors: binary and plain-text ASCII.  GDA
14     files are conceptually the same, but they store their data inside a GFF,
15     a binary hierarchical format.  Unlike 2DA files, a GDA does not store its
16     column header name directory.  Instead, only a CRC hash of the name
17     encoded in little-endian UTF-16 is stored.
18
19     This tool can read all of those formats and produces an easily readable,
20     cleanly formatted ASCII 2DA.  Alternatively, it can create a CSV file for
21     further processing.  It also contains a lookup table to convert GDA col‐
22     umn header hashes back to readable names.  Not all column header names
23     are known, though.
24

OPTIONS

26     -h
27     --help
28           Show a help text and exit.
29     --version
30           Show version information and exit.
31     -o file
32     --output file
33           Write the output to this file.  If this option is not used, the
34           output is written to stdout.
35     -a
36     --2da
37           Convert the 2DA or GDA file into an ASCII 2DA file.  This is the
38           default mode of operation.
39     -b
40     --2dab
41           Convert the 2DA or GDA file into a binary 2DA file.
42     -c
43     --csv
44           Convert the 2DA or GDA file into an CSV file.
45     file
46         The name of the 2DA or GDA file to read.
47
48         If more than one input file is given, they must all be GDA files and
49         use the same column layout. They will be pasted together and con‐
50         verted as one GDA. This mimics how the M2DA (multiple 2DA/GDA) work
51         in the Dragon Age games.
52

EXAMPLES

54     Convert the 2DA file1.2da into an ASCII 2DA file2.2da:
55
56           $ convert2da -a file1.2da file2.2da
57
58     Convert the 2DA file1.2da into an ASCII 2DA on stdout:
59
60           $ convert2da -a file1.2da
61
62     Convert the 2DA file1.2da into a binary 2DA file2.2da:
63
64           $ convert2da -b file1.2da file2.2da
65
66     Convert the 2DA file1.2da into a CSV file:
67
68           $ convert2da -c file1.2da file2.csv
69

SEE ALSO

71     gff2xml(1)
72
73     More information about the xoreos project can be found on its website:
74     https://xoreos.org/.
75

AUTHORS

77     This program is part of the xoreos-tools package, which in turn is part
78     of the xoreos project, and was written by the xoreos team.  Please see
79     the AUTHORS file for details.
80
81BSD                              July 23, 2015                             BSD
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