general options¶

  -h   --help


         print this help text and exit


       --version


         print version information and exit


       --arguments


         print expanded command line arguments


  -q   --quiet


         quiet mode, print no warnings and errors


  -v   --verbose


         verbose mode, print processing details


  -d   --debug


         debug mode, print debug information


  -ll  --log-level  [l]evel: string constant


         (fatal, error, warn, info, debug, trace)


         use level l for the logger


  -lc  --log-config  [f]ilename: string


         use config file f for the logger

input options¶

input file format:


  +f   --read-meta-info


         read meta information if present (default)


  -f   --ignore-meta-info


         ignore file meta information

processing options¶

validation:


  +Vd  --validate-document


         validate XML document against DTD


  +Vn  --check-namespace


         check XML namespace in document root
unique identifiers:


  +Ug  --generate-new-uids


         generate new Study/Series/SOP Instance UID


  -Uo  --dont-overwrite-uids


         do not overwrite existing UIDs (default)


  +Uo  --overwrite-uids


         overwrite existing UIDs

output options¶

output file format:


  +F   --write-file


         write file format (default)


  -F   --write-dataset


         write data set without file meta information


  +Fu  --update-meta-info


         update particular file meta information
output transfer syntax:


  +t=  --write-xfer-same


         write with same TS as input (default)


  +te  --write-xfer-little


         write with explicit VR little endian TS


  +tb  --write-xfer-big


         write with explicit VR big endian TS


  +ti  --write-xfer-implicit


         write with implicit VR little endian TS


  +td  --write-xfer-deflated


         write with deflated explicit VR little endian TS
error handling:


  -E   --stop-on-error


         do not write if document is invalid (default)


  +E   --ignore-errors


         attempt to write even if document is invalid
post-1993 value representations:


  +u   --enable-new-vr


         enable support for new VRs (UN/UT) (default)


  -u   --disable-new-vr


         disable support for new VRs, convert to OB
group length encoding:


  +g=  --group-length-recalc


         recalculate group lengths if present (default)


  +g   --group-length-create


         always write with group length elements


  -g   --group-length-remove


         always write without group length elements
length encoding in sequences and items:


  +e   --length-explicit


         write with explicit lengths (default)


  -e   --length-undefined


         write with undefined lengths
data set trailing padding (not with --write-dataset):


  -p=  --padding-retain


         do not change padding (default if not --write-dataset)


  -p   --padding-off


         no padding (implicit if --write-dataset)


  +p   --padding-create  [f]ile-pad [i]tem-pad: integer


         align file on multiple of f bytes and items on


         multiple of i bytes
deflate compression level (only with --write-xfer-deflated):


  +cl  --compression-level  [l]evel: integer (default: 6)


         0=uncompressed, 1=fastest, 9=best compression

Character Encoding¶

The DICOM character encoding is determined automatically from the element with tag "0008,0005" (Specific Character Set) - if present. The following character sets are currently supported (requires libxml to include iconv support, see --version output):

ASCII         (ISO_IR 6)    (UTF-8)
UTF-8         "ISO_IR 192"  (UTF-8)
ISO Latin 1   "ISO_IR 100"  (ISO-8859-1)
ISO Latin 2   "ISO_IR 101"  (ISO-8859-2)
ISO Latin 3   "ISO_IR 109"  (ISO-8859-3)
ISO Latin 4   "ISO_IR 110"  (ISO-8859-4)
ISO Latin 5   "ISO_IR 148"  (ISO-8859-9)
ISO Latin 9   "ISO_IR 203"  (ISO-8859-15)
Cyrillic      "ISO_IR 144"  (ISO-8859-5)
Arabic        "ISO_IR 127"  (ISO-8859-6)
Greek         "ISO_IR 126"  (ISO-8859-7)
Hebrew        "ISO_IR 138"  (ISO-8859-8)

Multiple character sets are not supported (only the first value of the "Specific Character Set" is used for the character encoding in case of value multiplicity).

See dcm2xml documentation for more details on the XML structure.

Binary Data¶

Binary data (*) can be encoded either as a sequence of hex numbers separated by a backslash "\" or in Base64 format (binary="base64"). In addition, binary datacan also be read from file (binary="file"). In this case, the filename has tobe specified as the element value, e.g.@verbatim <element tag="7fe0,0010" vr="OW" ... binary="file">subdir/pixeldata.raw</element>\endverbatimPlease note that the contents of the file will be read as is. OW data isexpected to be little endian ordered and will be swapped if necessary. Nochecks will be made to ensure that the amount of data is reasonable in termsof other attributes such as Rows or Columns.(*) Please note that currently only OB and OW data is supported, i.e. elementvalues with a VR of OD, OF, OL and OV are not regarded as "binary data" andtreated as all other VRs.@subsection xml2dcm_compression CompressionIf libxml is compiled with zlib support, the input file (\e xmlfile-in) canalso be compressed with ZIP, which usually results in much smaller files. Seeoutput of option \e --version in order to check whether zlib support isavailable.@subsection xml2dcm_limitations LimitationsDifferent versions of libxml might have different limits for the maximumlength of an XML element value. Therefore, it should be avoided to use verylong element values (e.g. for pixel data).Please note that \b xml2dcm currently does not fully support DICOMDIR files.Specifically, the value of the various offset data elements is not updatedautomatically by this tool.@section xml2dcm_logging LOGGINGThe level of logging output of the various command line tools and underlyinglibraries can be specified by the user. By default, only errors and warningsare written to the standard error stream. Using option \e --verbose alsoinformational messages like processing details are reported. Option\e --debug can be used to get more details on the internal activity, e.g. fordebugging purposes. Other logging levels can be selected using option\e --log-level. In \e --quiet mode only fatal errors are reported. In suchvery severe error events, the application will usually terminate. For moredetails on the different logging levels, see documentation of module "oflog".In case the logging output should be written to file (optionally with logfilerotation), to syslog (Unix) or the event log (Windows) option \e --log-configcan be used. This configuration file also allows for directing only certainmessages to a particular output stream and for filtering certain messagesbased on the module or application where they are generated. An exampleconfiguration file is provided in <em>\<etcdir\>/logger.cfg</em>.@section xml2dcm_command_line COMMAND LINEAll command line tools use the following notation for parameters: squarebrackets enclose optional values (0-1), three trailing dots indicate thatmultiple values are allowed (1-n), a combination of both means 0 to n values.Command line options are distinguished from parameters by a leading '+' or '-'sign, respectively. Usually, order and position of command line options arearbitrary (i.e. they can appear anywhere). However, if options are mutuallyexclusive the rightmost appearance is used. This behavior conforms to thestandard evaluation rules of common Unix shells.In addition, one or more command files can be specified using an '@' sign as aprefix to the filename (e.g. <em>\@command.txt</em>). Such a command argumentis replaced by the content of the corresponding text file (multiplewhitespaces are treated as a single separator unless they appear between twoquotation marks) prior to any further evaluation. Please note that a commandfile cannot contain another command file. This simple but effective approachallows one to summarize common combinations of options/parameters and avoidslongish and confusing command lines (an example is provided in file<em>\<datadir\>/dumppat.txt</em>).@section xml2dcm_environment ENVIRONMENTThe \b xml2dcm utility will attempt to load DICOM data dictionaries specifiedin the \e DCMDICTPATH environment variable. By default, i.e. if the\e DCMDICTPATH environment variable is not set, the file<em>\<datadir\>/dicom.dic</em> will be loaded unless the dictionary is builtinto the application (default for Windows).The default behavior should be preferred and the \e DCMDICTPATH environmentvariable only used when alternative data dictionaries are required. The\e DCMDICTPATH environment variable has the same format as the Unix shell\e PATH variable in that a colon (":") separates entries. On Windows systems,a semicolon (";") is used as a separator. The data dictionary code will attempt to load each file specified in the DCMDICTPATH environment variable. It is an error if no data dictionary can be loaded.