NAME

       gff2xml — BioWare GFF to XML converter

SYNOPSIS

       gff2xml [options] input_file [output_file]

DESCRIPTION

       gff2xml converts BioWare's GFF files (versions V3.2/V3.3 and V4.0/V4.1) into human-readable XML.  GFF are
       hierarchical  data files, similar to XML in concept, but stored in binary.  As such, these files are used
       as a basis for many of the file formats found in the BioWare games.  For example, an UTC file  is  a  GFF
       holding a template for a creature, while a GUI file is a GFF describing an in-game menu.

       Both  version  3  of  the  format  (V3.2/V3.3)  and  version 4 (V4.0/V4.1) are supported.  While they are
       similar, the 4th version carries several changes to make the files more efficient to read in-game.   This
       includes  replacing  the string field names (which map to XML tags) with numerical identifiers, resulting
       in converted XML files that are stripped of their  meaning.   To  compensate,  this  tool  adds  readable
       aliases  to  many of these numerical identifiers, giving them back their meaning.  Unfortunately, not all
       of them are known.  Most notably, the identifiers introduced in Sonic Chronicles:  The  Dark  Brotherhood
       and Dragon Age 2 are still missing.

       The  changes  in the minor versions (V3.2 vs. V3.3 and V4.0 vs.  V4.1) are less significant.  V3.3 simply
       changes which languages are supported, and V4.1 adds a common string table at  the  start  of  the  file.
       Both of these additions are handled transparently.

       LocStrings found in GFF V3.2 and V3.3 contain localized string data, which, depending on the game and the
       language,  can be encoded in various ways.  There is no way to autodetect the specific encoding.  gff2xml
       employs a simple heuristic to combat this, but it may fail for certain strings and files.  However, there
       are options to explicitly specify the game this GFF file is from.  gff2xml  will  then  use  the  correct
       game-specific encoding tables.

       Unfortunately,  even  these tables might not be completely correct in all cases.  Neverwinter Nights, for
       example, treated many strings as being encoded in the native encoding used for the language of  the  game
       installation.   This lead to many people putting non-English strings into fields tagged as language ID 0,
       nominally reserved for English.  To read these files correctly, gff2xml provides an --encoding  parameter
       to override the encoding used for a specific language ID.

OPTIONS

       -h
       --help
             Show a help text and exit.
       --version
             Show version information and exit.
       --cp1252
             Read  GFF4 strings as Windows CP-1252.  Usually, strings in version 4 of the GFF format are encoded
             in little-endian UTF-16.  But some files store them as Windows CP-1252 instead.  Since  there's  no
             clean way to autodetect the different encoding, this switch manually selects Windows CP-1252.  This
             option only concerns strings embedded in GFF4 files, not GFF3 LocStrings.
       --nwnpremium
             The  GFF  files  found  in  the  encrypted  HAK  files  of  Neverwinter  Nights premium modules are
             deliberately broken.  This options tells gff2xml to work around the brokenness.
       --nwn
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Neverwinter Nights.
       --nwn2
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Neverwinter Nights 2.
       --kotor
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Knights of the Old Republic.
       --kotor2
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Knights of the Old Republic II.
       --jade
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Jade Empire.
       --witcher
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for The Witcher.
       --dragonage
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Dragon Age: Origins.
       --dragonage2
             Read LocStrings in an encoding appropriate for Dragon Age II.
       --encoding str
             Override an encoding.  The string has to be of  the  form  n=encoding,  for  example  0=cp-1252  to
             override  the  encoding of the (ungendered) language ID 0 to be Windows codepage 1252.  To override
             several encodings, specify the --encoding parameter multiple times.
       input_file
             The GFF file to convert.
       [output_file]
             The XML file will be written there.  If no output file is specified, the XML  data  is  written  to
             stdout.  The encoding of the XML stream is always UTF-8.

EXAMPLES

       Convert the GFF file1.utc into an XML file:

             $ gff2xml file1.utc file2.xml

       Convert the GFF file1.utc into an XML file on stdout:

             $ gff2xml file1.utc

       Convert the GFF file1.utc, which uses Windows CP-1252 strings:

             $ gff2xml --cp1252 file1.utc file2.xml

       Convert the GFF file1.utc, which encodes language ID 0 in LocStrings as Windows CP-1250:
             $ gff2xml --encoding 0=cp1250 file1.utc file2.xml

SEE ALSO

       convert2da(1), fixpremiumgff(1), tlk2xml(1), ssf2xml(1)

       More information about the xoreos project can be found on its website: https://xoreos.org/.

AUTHORS

       This  program  is  part of the xoreos-tools package, which in turn is part of the xoreos project, and was
       written by the xoreos team.  Please see the AUTHORS file for details.

Debian                                          September 1, 2016                                     GFF2XML(1)