1GFF2XML(1) BSD General Commands Manual GFF2XML(1)
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4 gff2xml — BioWare GFF to XML converter
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7 gff2xml [options] input_file [output_file]
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10 gff2xml converts BioWare's GFF files (versions V3.2/V3.3 and V4.0/V4.1)
11 into human-readable XML. GFF are hierarchical data files, similar to XML
12 in concept, but stored in binary. As such, these files are used as a
13 basis for many of the file formats found in the BioWare games. For exam‐
14 ple, an UTC file is a GFF holding a template for a creature, while a GUI
15 file is a GFF describing an in-game menu.
16 Both version 3 of the format (V3.2/V3.3) and version 4 (V4.0/V4.1) are
18 supported. While they are similar, the 4th version carries several
19 changes to make the files more efficient to read in-game. This includes
20 replacing the string field names (which map to XML tags) with numerical
21 identifiers, resulting in converted XML files that are stripped of their
22 meaning. To compensate, this tool adds readable aliases to many of these
23 numerical identifiers, giving them back their meaning. Unfortunately,
24 not all of them are known. Most notably, the identifiers introduced in
25 Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood and Dragon Age 2 are still miss‐
26 ing.
27 The changes in the minor versions (V3.2 vs. V3.3 and V4.0 vs. V4.1) are
29 less significant. V3.3 simply changes which languages are supported, and
30 V4.1 adds a common string table at the start of the file. Both of these
31 additions are handled transparently.
32 LocStrings found in GFF V3.2 and V3.3 contain localized string data,
34 which, depending on the game and the language, can be encoded in various
35 ways. There is no way to autodetect the specific encoding. gff2xml
36 employs a simple heuristic to combat this, but it may fail for certain
37 strings and files. However, there are options to explicitly specify the
38 game this GFF file is from. gff2xml will then use the correct game-spe‐
39 cific encoding tables.
40 Unfortunately, even these tables might not be completely correct in all
42 cases. Neverwinter Nights, for example, treated many strings as being
43 encoded in the native encoding used for the language of the game instal‐
44 lation. This lead to many people putting non-English strings into fields
45 tagged as language ID 0, nominally reserved for English. To read these
46 files correctly, gff2xml provides an --encoding parameter to override the
47 encoding used for a specific language ID.
48
50 -h
51 --help
52 Show a help text and exit.
53 --version
54 Show version information and exit.
55 --cp1252
56 Read GFF4 strings as Windows CP-1252. Usually, strings in version
57 4 of the GFF format are encoded in little-endian UTF-16. But some
58 files store them as Windows CP-1252 instead. Since there's no
59 clean way to autodetect the different encoding, this switch manu‐
60 ally selects Windows CP-1252. This option only concerns strings
61 embedded in GFF4 files, not GFF3 LocStrings.
62 --nwnpremium
63 The GFF files found in the encrypted HAK files of Neverwinter
64 Nights premium modules are deliberately broken. This options tells
65 gff2xml to work around the brokenness.
66 --nwn
67 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Neverwinter Nights.
68 --nwn2
69 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Neverwinter Nights
70 2.
71 --kotor
72 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Knights of the Old
73 Republic.
74 --kotor2
75 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Knights of the Old
76 Republic II.
77 --jade
78 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Jade Empire.
79 --witcher
80 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for The Witcher.
81 --dragonage
82 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Dragon Age: Origins.
83 --dragonage2
84 Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Dragon Age II.
85 --encoding str
86 Override an encoding. The string has to be of the form n=encoding,
87 for example 0=cp-1252 to override the encoding of the (ungendered)
88 language ID 0 to be Windows codepage 1252. To override several
89 encodings, specify the --encoding parameter multiple times.
90 input_file
91 The GFF file to convert.
92 [output_file]
93 The XML file will be written there. If no output file is speci‐
94 fied, the XML data is written to stdout. The encoding of the XML
95 stream is always UTF-8.
96
98 Convert the GFF file1.utc into an XML file:
99 $ gff2xml file1.utc file2.xml
101 Convert the GFF file1.utc into an XML file on stdout:
103 $ gff2xml file1.utc
105 Convert the GFF file1.utc, which uses Windows CP-1252 strings:
107 $ gff2xml --cp1252 file1.utc file2.xml
109 Convert the GFF file1.utc, which encodes language ID 0 in LocStrings as
111 Windows CP-1250:
112 $ gff2xml --encoding 0=cp1250 file1.utc file2.xml
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115 convert2da(1), fixpremiumgff(1), tlk2xml(1), ssf2xml(1)
116 More information about the xoreos project can be found on its website:
118 https://xoreos.org/.
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121 This program is part of the xoreos-tools package, which in turn is part
122 of the xoreos project, and was written by the xoreos team. Please see
123 the AUTHORS file for details.
124BSD September 1, 2016 BSD